[loftyleeds]

Ok, lets put our tinted Leeds specs to one side and head to real street. Can any of us see anything other than a relegation dogfight this season? Forget the optimism a couple of months ago at being promoted. Forget your thoughts of "spend a couple of million on 3 or 4 half decent players", forget your dreams. The reality of the situation is we have done jack shit in the transfer market and are missing a decent centre back, decent centre mid and a decent striker. Where has the money gone from Delph, last years cup runs, promotion etc? I kept telling myself a couple of good signings would happen. I kept telling myself the championship is wide open and anything can happen. But in fairness we have not invested in the right areas and our squad at the moment is not good enough. I think we are in for a long season. Watch this space, dont forget Uncle Lofty said I told you so.

[tommy_v]

Plenty of time left in the market. Grayson has a couple of targets lined up as he said after the Hartlepool game. What point is their in losing all hope before a ball is kicked??

[Po mo Thoin]

tommy_v, on 27 July 2010 - 07:39 AM, said:

Plenty of time left in the market. Grayson has a couple of targets lined up as he said after the Hartlepool game. What point is their in losing all hope before a ball is kicked??

Brace ourselves for relegation ............ you must be joking ............. I have never once unbraced myself for such an outcome, since our calamitious fall from champions league semi's to the take over by Ken the Knut, to the 10 point rape
I have 3 different dartboards on my wall ........... Peter Ridsdale, David O'L and Ken

I reckon we are not really in the championship yet, until we have played at least 4 games there ............. the rest of the gang are probably plotting somewhere to find a reason to deduct about 25 points from our haul last year, to send us down again

Let's get a proper siege mentality going before start of the season ................ we will come out all guns blazing and pick up a a hat full of points

[Spook]

loftyleeds, on 27 July 2010 - 06:28 AM, said:

Ok, lets put our tinted Leeds specs to one side and head to real street. Can any of us see anything other than a relegation dogfight this season? Forget the optimism a couple of months ago at being promoted. Forget your thoughts of "spend a couple of million on 3 or 4 half decent players", forget your dreams. The reality of the situation is we have done jack shit in the transfer market and are missing a decent centre back, decent centre mid and a decent striker. Where has the money gone from Delph, last years cup runs, promotion etc? I kept telling myself a couple of good signings would happen. I kept telling myself the championship is wide open and anything can happen. But in fairness we have not invested in the right areas and our squad at the moment is not good enough. I think we are in for a long season. Watch this space, dont forget Uncle Lofty said I told you so.

We're never gonna make real progress until we sort out who actually owns the club - and what their agenda is. We obviously need new investors - but it's not gonna happen with Uncle Ken at the helm. The lack of signings so far has been disappointing - and the fact that we're still going to be relying on loans suggests serious lack of ambition.

Get the feeling Ken would be more than happy with mid-table mediocrity - whilst continuing to milk supporters of every penny they can afford: Prem. ticket prices; LUTV rip-offs and the like.

Having said that; I think the current squad - with the addition of a couple of loanees would be good enough for a mid-table finish... providing we can find someone to replace Beckford's goals - or at least partly so.

[Spook]

Quote

the 10 point rape

Didn't we used to sing: "15 points, who gives a f**k?"

[DRAGONZ_RULE]

Yeah I think he got that wrong .. but it's just semantics.

IMO, looking at our squad, compared to what Leicester were able to do after promoting from League 1 ..... we are fucking useless.


Mid-table mediocrity is not going to be achieved as far as I'm concerned ... at least not until after the January transfer window.

I'm thinking we'll be in a similar position to Forest in their first season up .. sitting in last position and a long way behind in January, and then the owner decides to pull his finger out and buy a couple of decent players who single-handedly push up out of relegation and up to about 12th-15th.

Ken Fucking Bates.

[andy]

it says it all when our most influental signing is a league 2 goalkeeper.the signings we have made so far are pure cack,and to be honest,id rather we hhad just stuck with last seasons squad than telling them to get lost.grayson said he wanted a refurbish of the squad to get in players who can keep us in the championship,yet our signings so far all but two are from league 1 level or lower bassone who hardly played half the season due to injury and connolly who half of fans rate and half dont.
what really showed last season is our lack of any real leadership from anyone while patrick was injured.only paul dickov and jermaine came close to that and neither are here anymore.not to metion we have no real goal threat from midfield as well as our forwards.we cant depend on paynter and beccio to deliver at this level its a big risk.unless we make a further few signings in the next couple of weeks i think things could get a bit rough

[Spook]

Quote

it says it all when our most influental signing is a league 2 goalkeeper.

Don't think using Schmeichel as an example really works.

He was never really a "league 2 goalkeeper" was he? In the same way that Sol Campbell was never really a league 2 centre back.

Schmeichel was the best keeper in league 2 by a country mile - and on big bucks.

When we signed him; I actually saw it as a statement of positive intent, from the board: that we were going to be bringing in three or four top quality additions that would be much better than the players we already had.

Sadly, this hasn't happened - and as a result, our expectations for the following campaign seem to have crashed through the floor.

[Spook]

And if the Becchio rumours are in any way true (see separate thread) than we're well and truly in the dogshit.

[tommy_v]

andy, on 28 July 2010 - 10:20 AM, said:

it says it all when our most influental signing is a league 2 goalkeeper.the signings we have made so far are pure cack,and to be honest,id rather we hhad just stuck with last seasons squad than telling them to get lost.grayson said he wanted a refurbish of the squad to get in players who can keep us in the championship,yet our signings so far all but two are from league 1 level or lower bassone who hardly played half the season due to injury and connolly who half of fans rate and half dont.
what really showed last season is our lack of any real leadership from anyone while patrick was injured.only paul dickov and jermaine came close to that and neither are here anymore.not to metion we have no real goal threat from midfield as well as our forwards.we cant depend on paynter and beccio to deliver at this level its a big risk.unless we make a further few signings in the next couple of weeks i think things could get a bit rough

surely you kid

[DRAGONZ_RULE]

tommy_v, on 28 July 2010 - 04:24 PM, said:

surely you kid

I don't think he does, tommy ... who of our midfielders do you think can really threaten the goals on a regular basis in the Championship? Who is our Charlie Adam??

If you look at the side from last season, Johnson scored 5 or 6 goals in the first 2 months and then didn't score for the rest of the year, Howson only scored 2 or 3 goals all season, and the same for Snoddy. And now we step up to a league that is arguably 10 times better than the semi-professional nature of League 1 (in the sense that a lot of clubs there are tinpot clubs going nowhere).

I fear it is a long season for us ... the key will be to avoid relegation so that we don't drop back down into the shithole that is the third division.

Bates has shown his true colours more than ever this pre-season .... he is not at all serious about getting us back to the Prem, he is just here to milk the Yorkshire faithful of every last penny they have. He knows that a Premiership club demands tens of millions of pounds every season to stay there, whilst he can own a lower-half-of-the-table Championship side with loose change.

We have to get rid of him!!!

[tommy_v]

DRAGONZ_RULE, on 28 July 2010 - 11:43 PM, said:

I don't think he does, tommy ... who of our midfielders do you think can really threaten the goals on a regular basis in the Championship? Who is our Charlie Adam??

If you look at the side from last season, Johnson scored 5 or 6 goals in the first 2 months and then didn't score for the rest of the year, Howson only scored 2 or 3 goals all season, and the same for Snoddy. And now we step up to a league that is arguably 10 times better than the semi-professional nature of League 1 (in the sense that a lot of clubs there are tinpot clubs going nowhere).

I fear it is a long season for us ... the key will be to avoid relegation so that we don't drop back down into the shithole that is the third division.

Bates has shown his true colours more than ever this pre-season .... he is not at all serious about getting us back to the Prem, he is just here to milk the Yorkshire faithful of every last penny they have. He knows that a Premiership club demands tens of millions of pounds every season to stay there, whilst he can own a lower-half-of-the-table Championship side with loose change.

We have to get rid of him!!!

for me Snoddy played the second half of the season at less then 100% fit (as Lorimer said in the SK Brann game). go back to the first half of the season when fully fit, and the pre season so far, he is proving to be our most dangerous player. hopefully the injury in lasts nights game is nothing major and he can continue playing in such form.
in regards to our signing i think Lloyd Sam is being unfairly looked over. in the 2 games i have listened too he has been a class act and even he is not fully fit as hes returning from injury.
johnson and howson can score goals. not enough to rely on them but they will contribute this season no doubt

and if we do utilise this 4-5-1 when defending 4-3-3 when attacking formation i think goals a plenty will come our way. especially against derby whose defence has struggled looking at pre season results

all that being said like everyone else im still eagerly awaiting the unvailing of our final piece of the midfield jigsaw.

[Canadian-LUFC]

I don't think we are as bad as you people are making us sound.. Yes we are lacking in the transfer market but all of you expected us to spend at least 3 years in the championship before we get back into the big boys league. The last couple of seasons in league 1 we were by far a lot better than 90% of the clubs, we were playing as a Championship club. We no longer ahve the pressure on us we did last season and thats a lot of weight.. So Beckford is gone we picked up a 20+ Goal scorer, There are some areas we need to work on but do any of you really want to get back in teh premier next season ? it would be nice but going up then getting sent immediatly down due to the lack of premiership players is not the way up we all want... We want to slowly build over the next few seasons and that seems to be the thinking Ken has. Yeah i wanted a couple of big strkier signings but being held ransom for 2-3 million for players that are not worth it is not the way. I would prefer 2 or 3 younger guys to build with rather than 1 -3 mil signing. I dont see us challenging for top honours at all but i do see us as a mid table championship team. Big signings got us in trouble before we dont need to go down that road again. Build slow and with Youth Ken. in Grayson we trust. Keep your heads up boys.

[Grizzly]

Canadian-LUFC, on 28 July 2010 - 03:25 PM, said:

I don't think we are as bad as you people are making us sound.. Yes we are lacking in the transfer market but all of you expected us to spend at least 3 years in the championship before we get back into the big boys league. The last couple of seasons in league 1 we were by far a lot better than 90% of the clubs, we were playing as a Championship club. We no longer ahve the pressure on us we did last season and thats a lot of weight.. So Beckford is gone we picked up a 20+ Goal scorer, There are some areas we need to work on but do any of you really want to get back in teh premier next season ? it would be nice but going up then getting sent immediatly down due to the lack of premiership players is not the way up we all want... We want to slowly build over the next few seasons and that seems to be the thinking Ken has. Yeah i wanted a couple of big strkier signings but being held ransom for 2-3 million for players that are not worth it is not the way. I would prefer 2 or 3 younger guys to build with rather than 1 -3 mil signing. I dont see us challenging for top honours at all but i do see us as a mid table championship team. Big signings got us in trouble before we dont need to go down that road again. Build slow and with Youth Ken. in Grayson we trust. Keep your heads up boys.

About time we had some positivity! Christ! Now, to be honest, i am upset that Bates has not spent some money, on proper, players, for this level, i mean, all the vibes coming out of the club are that we are aiming for a top 6 finish! And we can't do it on free transfers...can we? I wonder how much Ian Holloway spent last season with Blackpool?! Not half as much as QPR. And where did they finish?! We have to be realistic with our squad...and that means we're not gonna get relegated, our squad is far better than a lot of clubs in this divison! We're not going to win every single match this year!

On the other hand, we really could do with a striker, and defender, Lloyd Sam is looking very promising at the moment! We are still "in talks" with players, but these things are not done extremley quick! We need to give it time, re evaluate our squad before the Derby game, and then we can start slagging Uncle Ken off!

Anything can happen in football!

[tommy_v]

Grizzly, on 29 July 2010 - 02:40 AM, said:

About time we had some positivity! Christ! Now, to be honest, i am upset that Bates has not spent some money, on proper, players, for this level, i mean, all the vibes coming out of the club are that we are aiming for a top 6 finish! And we can't do it on free transfers...can we? I wonder how much Ian Holloway spent last season with Blackpool?! Not half as much as QPR. And where did they finish?! We have to be realistic with our squad...and that means we're not gonna get relegated, our squad is far better than a lot of clubs in this divison! We're not going to win every single match this year!

On the other hand, we really could do with a striker, and defender, Lloyd Sam is looking very promising at the moment! We are still "in talks" with players, but these things are not done extremley quick! We need to give it time, re evaluate our squad before the Derby game, and then we can start slagging Uncle Ken off!

Anything can happen in football!

ive been positive for a while now nobody listens with the whole glass-half-empty approach on here