Sales of Summerville, Gray, Rutter and Kamara.....what do they do to us?
I felt Kamara was the better of the midfield 2 last season, involved further upfield, always linking with Summerville, but really a nothing special midfielder, shouldnt be that hard to replace.
Gray did great job at left back and at times last season just looked effortless and seemed to be everywhere. he is impossible to replace at this point and leaves us weaker defensively, creatively and also destroys the connection team/club had with fans/history, a real dent to morale.
Summerville, well we just lost a whole lot of goals and threat. We dont have anyone else who can do that in our squad and will be very hard to replace in any shape or form in next couple of weeks.
Rutter brought a joy to the team, such a smiling, positive person, it was infectious, but more than that, created problems for opposition all over the pitch and chipped in with goals, assists, free kicks etc, again we just dont have anyone like him it squad.
Is it end of world? No.
But its going to be impossible to replace with like for like, or as we're always told "only will buy better than we have" in the rest of the window.
Which leaves an alternative in terms of change of tactics/approach.
Its always felt to me that we have no real tactic except for get it to Summerville and see what might happen.
Perhaps there is an opportunity to change things.
however it doesn't feel like that is plan from Farke's presser where it sounded more like we're just selling and he'll have to make do with what he has got.
We have gone from promotion favourites to......well, to what?
If Farke can get unity again, if he can have 3/4 signings, who knows, but right now, I would put more chance on us going down than going up.
I fully expect offers to come in for Gnonto and James.
If we want to stay up, we must make quality signings, if we want to go up, we're going to have to make quite a few of those.
What do these sales do to us?
posted on 16/8/24
https://motleedsnews.com/exclusives/leeds-united-to-pay-huge-premium-for-new-transfers-before-august-30/
Forget the source I’ve no idea how reliable or not they are. But it resonated with me for how much what’s been written aligns with my feelings in the last 24 hours.
Georgi going is a real trigger point for me. Archie & Cry (& others) if satisfying our balance sheets were unavoidable I can reluctantly live with. Now this just feels more pocketing cash than building a promotion capable team.
Big 2nd half of august ahead 👍
posted on 16/8/24
The thing that riled me listening to Farke was when asked about Rutter he said he didn't know about the exit clause in the contract when he was apply for the role but knew shortly after.
So, for a year, he's been sitting there holding his breathing hoping that nobody would trigger it, not planning for what would happen if they did.
This is very poor management. It's like letting the kids play near an unexploded ww2 bomb knowing it's there but not doing anything about it hoping that it will never go off.
This is where the metaphor stops working but my god they should have been doing something to dampen some of the damage.
posted on 16/8/24
I like the idea his name might be Butter because they've just let Georgi slip through our fingers.
posted on 16/8/24
The thing that really makes me angry is that we supposedly sold Gray in order to NOT have to sell anybody else who was key to the team! The money we got for him was supposed to have sorted out our finances.
Why did we sell our crown jewels first when we have no protection for our best players because there are release clauses on them?
posted on 16/8/24
Reading we owe Hoffenheim possibly £4.2 M in sell on clause for Rutter.
posted on 16/8/24
It’s just awful planning.
We can’t do anything about them leaving if the clause is triggered but the rest of the issues should have been long solved.
We should have another fullback and another midfielder in way before Summerville or Rutter went. Then okay we can deal with their replacements. Now it feels like a massive job because we have to bring in multiple signings as well as replacing those two.
posted on 16/8/24
comment by The Very Rev Wilko (U21072)
posted 1 hour, 25 minutes ago
Reading we owe Hoffenheim possibly £4.2 M in sell on clause for Rutter.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
funny how people saying it was 25 m plus clauses, so we only paid 25 mill and wont have to pay clauses so made 15m profit
posted on 16/8/24
I’ve no faith that we will sign anyone at all. We’ll just have to make do with who we have left - and hoping and praying that Ampadu and Struijk don’t go as well. Maybe the 49ers are getting as much money in as possible to pay off some of the debts and then go and sell us to Red Bull? They’ve told so many lies, I wouldn’t put it past them!
I have no enthusiasm for the next game nor the rest of the season now. We are back to the pre-Bielsa days. Sometimes it feels like I only dreamt that we had Bielsa and some success.
posted on 16/8/24
It's sadly and pathetically so so true when most of us see Marcelo Bielsa as the only very rich oasis in a very large desert that is the last 20 years of chronic mismanagement of our beloved club.
posted on 16/8/24
When you’ve not got a great coach, it’s hard to get a tune from an average squad.
James and the petulant Gnonto best we have now with little back up, creative wise. Midfield looks woeful.