"I keep reading this line "if only Bielsa had better players..."

Bielsa had a man crush on Dan James. He's the
reason we blew 30 mill on him. He wouldn't let it
go and kept pushing the club to buy him.

That was Bielsa's idea of a better player."

So anyone saying Bielsa wouldn't do better with better players, that's not real is it!..

Shame no one can ask Bielsa how many of ManC's bench if he had the chance would he have swapped for our first team players!..

Even their youngsters on there are good enough to get in our first team!..

And investing in better players, our record bye is what, 29m?..

What does better quality mean, the same prices for better players, these days it don't work like that!..

And 100m pro player, Ridsdale, hopefully we don't get another him at the club!..

And boy ain't we in a better state without Bates or Cellino?..

Batty.. I have no confidence in Orta to invest wisely and I really hope his services are curtailed immediately at the end of this season.
His success rate is of a broken clock and I have huge suspicions over his Spanish transfer dealings or his "cut" from his pals at Barcelona and Real Madrid in which we have possibly aquired or been stung into aquirring the most average Brazilian defender ever and previously a third choice Spanish goal keeper that made Calamitous mistake after mistake and was paid a kings ransom to do so.

Why does one person have to be at fault? Why can't it be a collective failing?

comment by Batty 🇺🇦 (U4664)
posted 34 minutes ago
Macca, if we do drop, then the parachute payment
plus player sales (Rapha, KP, Llorente, Rodrigo, Koch,
maybe Meslier), would need to be reinvested as
shrewdly as any money has ever been invested. It'd be
a huge test of Orta. Is he capable?
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i really dont think so unfortunately and ill wait and see but i dont think marcsh is either.

Small squad or big squad? First and foremost we needed a quality squad. The summer window and January window were appalling. Is Firpo actually a footballer? James was needed two years ago, not now. The three stooges of Radz, Orta and Kinnear have to shoulder the blame. You can’t do the prem on the cheap and we are going to suffer for it, going down will be a disaster with no easy way back. Gutted that it has come to this. Total mismanagement.

comment by The Donn (U15142)
posted 4 hours, 2 minutes ago
Spot on by all the bielsas ringing couldn’t have put it better myself Bielsa was the cause of all the problems.Maybe now Jonty et will stop defending the indefensible ie Bielsa.
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You are an offensive little man aren't you?

IF we are relegated, then yes, it will be a COLLECTIVE failure. Of course it will be. Relegation cannot be anything other than a catastrophic regression.

BUT, that if is a big one at the mo. It's pretty even-stevens as it stands. Can't see the point in looking for individual scapegoats, particularly before the season has ended.

Come on you Leeds fans, keep the faith even if it really does look grim at the minute!

"Is Firpo actually a footballer?" - that's a great question!

We are reeling after weekend where our rivals pulled a win out of their backsides - let’s face it, we expected to get beat by City, so the doom and gloom has been brought on by results elsewhere - Everton and Burnley are still who they are, pretty average trams like us. This still can go our way - absolutely it can

we are now favourites of the 3 to go down

comment by Jaz63 (U8369)
posted 45 minutes ago
"Is Firpo actually a footballer?" - that's a great question!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
for me def not and is a card magnet due to such poor tackling. Dont think we will have much choice but to play him now but reckon hes got red card written all over him for arsenal

The owners. Lack of investment in the windows is killer blow. Offer bielsa £100m and he'd get someone he wanted. £12m for Huddersfield midfielders is hardly an enticement.

First of all, in fairness to Jonty, he’s given a full analysis and the reasons for his stance; somewhat reminiscent of Bielsa…

The points are well argued, but like most debates, there are always the counter arguments.

However, what we have to eliminate from the debate first of all are the elements about the man himself. His conduct was almost exemplary, and his public treatment of those around him or involved in football with the highest standards of respect. Indeed, he rarely criticised in public, and when stretched, instead gave a full explanation for his decision.

Nevertheless, any sports coach in charge of a player, or players, has to know and accept when change or adaptation is needed. Moreover, to recognise when that change is urgent. We will never know what the players really thought about certain elements of Bielsa’s training methods; they knew it had brought improvements to their game they perhaps never imagined. However, perhaps some had growing concerns as this season has worn on, and wanted to see a change of coach, and it’s not unheard of. It can be argued that in some sports players taking these decisions is the norm anyway if they feel it is having an adverse effect.

Regarding squad sizeD Bielsa explained his reason for a small squad, That is fair enough, and there is no issue with that as his personal approach to coaching and his choice. However, this season, that small squad philosophy was tested to the limit, and unfortunate or not injuries exposed the shortcomings of that philosophy.

This moves us into the grey area of debate.

How much input, if at all, did Bielsa actually have into the players which were eventually signed up? Did he have any form of veto? We can analyse perhaps by observing his approach to loan players brought into the club. Did we see this with JKA? Jack Clarke also? Then we have the contrast of Ben White. It does therefore seem to indicate that Bielsa had virtually zero input into the final say about players coming in, yet quickly making clear about squad members he didn’t want to work with. That seems a very risky and imprudent approach to transfers.

However, two falllot of the issues above can’t be conflated; the first was a philosophy of the coach, the other a philosophy of the board. What is clear is that the shortcoming of both have been exposed for all fans to set this season.

Dealing with the rushing back of some players. Personally, from my perspective, we have to look at the circumstances at the point when Jesse Marsch has come in. The dire position we were in is none of his doing. I have litttle doubt he would be so keen to rush back players unless he really had too; but there is a ‘fire’ of relegation to put out and it’s all hands to the pump as it were. That has resulted in injuries; these are clearly recalls from injury under pressure to save the club from regulation, not a long term strategy that Marsch has about returning players. Those who still judge Bielsa harshly could say that his training methods made recovery much longer than would have been normal. It’s hard to quantify the impact, but in fairness it also can’t be eliminated from the argument.

Finally a brief examination of the board - the field and off the field. How Bielsa’s removal was handled was shameful and there was no need for it. However, many fans from other clubs have argued that most boards would have removed Bielsa earlier and to be fair, there is a lot of weight to that argument.

Then there is the other element of the board’s responsibility: recruitment. Jonty makes a sound summary of their failures, so in the end, it all rests upon the input of Bielsa.

I’ve often felt that Orta somehow presumed to bring in high risk players of average talent and that Biels would magically improve them.

Bielsa made players fitter. After that it was down to his tactical approach.

I believe his ending was primarily to a perfect storm of two key factors. Above all others, I am certain that other managers had examined the flaws in Bielsa’s methods and explored them; for me that is key and the 5-1 result at Manchester United in the opening game of the season should have set the alarm bells ringing. It was a repeat defeat for the second season running by four goals at the hands of the same club. After 5 games, there were several of us noted that the players already looked jaded and tired. I have to agree. Then came the second key factors: injuries to key players to compound an already poor start to the season.

In short, Bielsa’s preferences methods and approach had become exposed in perhaps the toughest and most competitive league in the world.

I was ine who argued that a great man knows when to adjust and adapt.

The blame? Not that Bielsa couldn’t have overcome these issues, but that he wasn’t willing to adapt. Oddly, he was willing to take the high risk of that molmetimg his tactics (as we saw last season when we were exposed at times) but not the risk of changing them or adapting to the unique challenges presented by the Premier League.

So we can see that there were failings both by Bielsa and the board which has led to this debacle we find ourselves in. I don’t blame Marsch for rushing back players early for the reasons Inexplained earlier; he knows it’s all hands to the pump. He has done his job; unfortunately, so have the coaches of Burnley and Everton, and that is a huge factor.

I think but for the latter, we wouldn’t be having this debate any longer.

This season is over 38 games! There are four more to play. It could yet be that we climb out of the bottom three in the last 10
minutes of the season and say that we were never in any doubt!

We could beat Brighton and Brentford and were making a fuss over nothing. Are we in trouble? Yes! Are we going down? Probably Are we relegated now? No!

All at fault……


Bielsa is at fault for getting us to 9th position last season which led to the arrogance of board not to invest …. Given he had 8 players out most of the season sacking him was utter ridiculous at the point we did

Orta - need I say more?

Radz - we will be top 6 in 3 years and then spends fekk all. What an absolute muppet

Kinnear - been feeding us shttt on match day programmes all season about “strategy and building for the future”

Fans - think we could have done more and raised the concerns around the boards inaction earlier (like
Newcastle fans did) fact us most of us got complacent (myself included) thinking relegation will
Never happen to us

This new American guy - decides not to play football and Crystal Palace. Slated bielsa’s methods in every interview he has and talking about robust defending. Plays 5 defenders vs city and condedes 2 of the cheapest set pieces you will ever see in football ffs.

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

Richarlison could be banned for throwing a flair into the crowd, would be excellent news for us.

The players are playing for their futures also. I’d we are to stay up, they know they are the only ones who can make it happen.

Upon reflection, I’m still adamant that we have a healthy account of ourselves. Marsch truly has to dedivate time this week to defending set pieces. It’s an imperative.

Watching Chelsea, I think we could clearly see the gulf in technical ability even between them and Manchester City, I still feel something from the Arsenal game is achievable. Imagine if we came away with a shock win.

Suddenly our mood would be different.

We’ve spoken about points on the board and both Burnley and Everton have taken up the challenge and closed that gap.

Now the ball is back in our court.

Fulham just smashed the Championship and several
records along the way. They invested well. Bounced
back easily. Not sure our current set up could do that
if we do drop.

I watched that Fulham game and the time and space Fulham were afforded was very noticeable as you just don't get that in EPL. I can see Norwich and Watford doing similar to what Fulham have done and whoever joins them in the bottom 3 will more than likely enjoy a very successful season and come straight back up.

The gap between Premier League and Championship with the parachute payments seems to have created a "closed shop" sort of membership as long as your books are in order and you can keep the nucleus of your relegated squad which Norwich and Watford should do and I think worse case scenario we should too.

Macca, Jonty suggested this would happen several seasons ago. He was spot on.

comment by kernowekLeeds (U10930)
posted 3 hours, 39 minutes ago

The owners. Lack of investment in the windows is killer blow. Offer bielsa £100m and he'd get someone he wanted. £12m for Huddersfield midfielders is hardly an enticement.

^^^^^

Kernow, the club did. More actually:

25 mill+ Players (2):
Rodrigo – 27 mill (playing better recently but...)
Dan James – 25 mill (waste of money)

Under 20 mill Players (5):
Raph – 17 mill (absolute steal/brilliant)
Jack – 11 mill (good signing at that price)
Llorente – 18 mill (borderline waste of money)
Koch – 13 mill (jury's out)
Firpo – 13 mill (awful/waste of money)

Total: 124 mill

Seven players brought to us by Orta/MB.
Raph was a fantastic signing at any price. But at
that price, incredible.
Jack was good investment.

Dan James was a waste of money. We needed
a striker/goal scorer. MB pushed for him. Awful.

Firpo...whoever thought he was a good investment
needs their head testing. Orta for sure involved.
Was MB? Not sure. This one's on Victor.

And I've said repeatedly, at the time, I wanted the
club to sign White for 35 mill. MB/club declined.
We got Llorente and Koch instead for 31 mill. Both
have been injured/absent/disappointing. Waste of
money once again.

Rodrigo's technically a lovely footballer. And he's
been much better of late, in Marsch's system.
However, not 27 mill's worth.

Not to mention JKA debacle.

But absolutely true that the club/Orta/MB fcked up
royally in the summer and especially in January window.

That's it, Batty. It's not that the club haven't invested but it's that they didn't invest in January when it was painfully obvious we needed something and the teams around us strengthened.

For what it's worth, I think getting Koch and Llorente for less than Ben White would have cost was good business. Not Orta's fault that Koch has been injured majority of the team and Llorente was great second half of last season and when he's played with Cooper this season, he's been good as well. Just not had a settled defence.

Rodrigo and Dan James are the ones that have really failed. Rodrigo doesn't suit the team or league and James to his credit hasn't played in his actual position.

Llorente is one DataFlux back away from conceding and Koch has just been meh.

That’s 30 mill right there.

Can’t believe nothing gets flagged up in Medicals.

Look at fir Shaw and signing Izzy brown whilst injured, we don’t seem to make good decisions in this area.

Talking of forshaw it’s 4 years ago since we signed him…is he the last defensive midfielder we signed?