The Leeds Thread

[WALMOT]

From the YEP:-

Samuel Saiz thanked Leeds United head coach Marcelo Bielsa and director of football Victor Orta for sanctioning his rapid exit from Elland Road after securing a loan move to Spanish club Getafe.

In a statement issued by Saiz’s agent, the midfielder confirmed that a “personal problem” had driven his shock move to Madrid and said he hoped to see the squad he had left behind in Yorkshire promoted to the Premier League at the end of this season.

Samuel Saiz has thanked Leeds United for allowing him to leave the club following a "personal problem."

 

Leeds finalised Saiz’s switch to La Liga side Getafe after he passed a medical yesterday.

 

His six-month loan will officially start on January 1 and Getafe have an option to sign him permanently for £6m next summer.

 

Saiz, who missed Leeds’ win at Bolton Wanderers on Saturday to travel back to Spain, will remain in Madrid with United’s permission until his loan with Getafe begins. His partner is pregnant and due to give birth in the coming weeks.

Leeds agreed to allow Saiz to depart just 18 months into his spell at Elland Road after the Spaniard told the club that he was unhappy in England and keen to go back to his homeland.

The development came as a major surprise last week, depriving Bielsa of a player he recently called “the most skilled in our team”, but Leeds opted to accept Getafe’s offer rather than force an unsettled Saiz to remain at Thorp Arch.

A statement released to the YEP by Saiz’s agent, Juan Moreno, said: “Samuel was delighted by Leeds, he loves the people and the city, but a personal problem made him come back to Madrid.

 

 

“He hopes Leeds will still go to the Premier League in the summer and he is very grateful to Marcelo and Victor Orta for understanding his problem.”

Speaking after Leeds’ win at Bolton, Bielsa said: “He has a personal situation to solve and the club allowed him to talk (to Getafe). I can't tell you what will happen. What I can tell you is that he has the permission of the club to be absent.

“I don’t know the reasons for his absence. This is a decision between the club and Samuel Saiz.”

[NJ2]

All sounds quite tragic. Looks as though Leeds have been very understanding and considerate. Hopefully things work out for Saiz and his family.

[WALMOT]

https://thesefootballtimes.co/2018/12/17/how-marcelo-bielsa-in-one-of-his-greatest-challenges-is-guiding-leeds-away-from-a-decade-of-disappointment/

[JakeSAFC]

Saiz is a classy wee player, will be a miss. He will undoubtely get replaced.

[WALMOT]

From the YEP:-

This, for Leeds United, has been a year of two halves, salvaged by a speculative phone call to Argentina.

All that could go wrong did go wrong in the first six months of 2018 but having limped into the summer with wounds to lick, the club stormed out the other side of it after injecting themselves with Marcelo Bielsa.

Leeds head the Championship and are guaranteed to reach Christmas inside the division’s top two, light years away from the inward collapse which defined last season.

Their owner, Andrea Radrizzani, was warned that appointing Bielsa might be “impossible” but tempting Bielsa over from South America was the turning point in a year which was going nowhere.

The final Inside Elland Road column of 2018 takes a numerical look at the 12 months behind a club who are quietly dreaming of what 2019 might bring:

0 - teams who have taken a punt on either Thomas Christiansen or Paul Heckingbottom since the end of their tenures at Elland Road. Leeds are a huge stage for most managers, offering a high level of exposure, but relatively few leave the club and go on to find another job quickly.

1 - penalties awarded. One penalty awarded to Leeds in the whole of 2018 to date, against Queens Park Rangers a week-and-a-half ago. That ended a wait of more than 5,200 minutes and broke a consecutive run of 58 games without any official aiding United by pointing to the spot. The record will take some beating.

3 - head coaches employed by Leeds this year. Christiansen walked the plank in February, Heckingbottom was gone by the start of June but Bielsa is showing more serious staying power. No manager at Elland Road has ever earned a higher salary than him. Sometimes you get what you pay for.

6 - red cards shown to Leeds players, which on closer inspection reveals a marked improvement this season. Five were incurred in the second half of last term and two by Gaetano Berardi alone.

Luke Ayling’s dismissal for two bookable offences against Brentford in October is the only blemish on Bielsa’s watch.

The club have also trimmed their tally of yellow cards.

7 - millions of pounds spent on Patrick Bamford in July, the biggest fee the club have parted with since they mistakenly drew the conclusion that they could afford Robbie Fowler in 2001.

United, though, are still a long way off breaking the transfer record set by Rio Ferdinand’s £18m acquisition from West Ham in November 2000.

8 - August brought Bielsa the manager-of-the-month award, the first won by a United coach since Simon Grayson in 2010 and only the fourth since the EFL’s divisions were rebranded in 2004. It’s a great example of how much aimless football Leeds have endured in the past eight years.

10 - clean sheets with Bielsa as head coach, in tandem with the best defensive home record in the Championship.

To give that figure some context, in the second half of last season Leeds registered just four clean sheets and only two in 16 games with Heckingbottom in charge.

A sea change, in more ways than one.

14 - goals scored by Kemar Roofe in this calendar year, from just 30 league appearances.

One from every two games, or thereabouts, is a strike rate any forward would settle for and he has been one of Bielsa’s most successful projects: a player who didn’t quite fit finally falling into place.

14 - Leeds’ lowest league position in 2018, a trough reached midway through March.

All hopes of promotion were extinguished by then and it is incredible to realise that at that stage, after 38 games, the club had only five points more than they do now with 24 matches still to play.

17 - Leeds United matches shown live by Sky Sports.

That’s 17 from 43 Championship fixtures in total which, considering that Leeds were playing for nothing at all from the beginning of March onwards, is quite an addiction.

18 - points collected by Leeds from 21 matches between January 1 and the end of last season.

This season they have 45 from 22. That transformation is almost unbelievable.

22 - goals either scored or assisted by Pablo Hernandez in 2018. Ten times he found the net himself and on 12 occasions he laid on a finish for someone else.

A little magician, Adam Forshaw called him. Hernandez is that.

24 - players used by Bielsa in the Championship and had it not been for injuries, that total would be closer to 20 if not below. It is unlikely to climb much higher either.

Fulham went up while using 28 last term and Wolves relied on 31. Sunderland finished bottom, having fielded 37.

There is something to be said for a settled, consistent squad.

41 - Leeds have contested 43 league fixtures in 2018 so far. Gjanni Alioski has played in 41 of them, more than anyone else at Elland Road. Bielsa is not alone in liking him or relying on him.

58 - United’s goals in 2018, with three games left to play before the turn of the year. Again, the comparisons are striking. Twenty-two of those came last season. Thirty-six have come this season. Remarkably, all but seven under Bielsa have arrived from open play. Aston Villa, in contrast, have bagged 15 from set-pieces.

59 - Bielsa’s win percentage after 22 league games, a big enough sample to make the statistic relevant.

Combined with a loss rate of nine per cent, it explains why Leeds are top of the table and, like Nuno at Wolves last season, Bielsa is destroying the myth that to do well in the Championship a manager needs to know the Championship. Cobblers.

59.1 - percentage of possession which Leeds are controlling through Bielsa’s tactics. Only two sides in England’s highest two divisions dominate the ball more than United: Manchester City and Chelsea. Leeds hovered around 50 per cent last term.

63 - Bielsa celebrated his 63rd birthday a month after taking charge of Leeds, making him the oldest coach in the Championship. The irony is that he also feels like one of the freshest.

The Premier League is more awash with veterans: Roy Hodgson and Neil Warnock are in their 70s and both Claudio Ranieri and Manuel Pellegrini have a few years on Bielsa.

The division is clearly ready for him.

88 - the percentage level of shareholding which United chairman Andrea Radrizzani dropped to in May after bringing in investment from the San Francisco 49ers.

The agreement between them appears to the give the 49ers the right to increase their stake marginally if Leeds aren’t promoted in May.

236 - senior appearances Gaetano Berardi wracked up, for three different clubs, before finally scoring the first goal of his career at Newport County in January, the only highlight of a truly miserable FA Cup experience.

Twelve years he waited for that. Former Leeds goalkeeper Paul Robinson only needed five.

[RedRob72]

Surprising and disappointing result against Hull on Saturday, tough one tomorrow at Forest away, definitely one for the telly though, with a recovery pint.[emoji106] Back on it Leeds.

[WALMOT]

From The Daily Telegraph

 

When Leeds United take on Derby County at Elland Road on Friday night, the focus, for once, will not be on the ghosts of Don Revie and Brian Clough, those two sons of Middlesbrough locked in eternal rancour. Nor will the well-worn footage of Norman Hunter looming out of the Baseball Ground mud and murk to trade haymakers and uppercuts with Francis Lee merit another airing to define the two rivals by their glorious and sometimes ignoble past.
Leeds, still two points clear at the top of the Championship despite back-to-back defeats, are a club that have been liberated from nostalgic infatuations and ceaseless turmoil since relegation from the Premier League in 2004 by material progress towards promotion under Marcelo Bielsa.
Derby, in sixth, are a far more mature and cohesive side now than the one Leeds trounced 4-1 at Pride Park in the second match of the season. “I’m really looking forward to it,” says Eddie Gray, Leeds’ most graceful player who also served his beloved club in two spells as manager. “It’s a big, big game. There’s a lot of optimism in the city and we have a great opportunity to go up.”
It’s another sell-out at Elland Road where signs of transformation and renewal are evident since Andrea Radrizzani became the majority shareholder in 2017. It has never been a pretty ground, stop-start development caused by decades of boom and bust and the consequent confusion of styles have robbed it of elegance. Nevertheless, its stark asymmetry, one enormous stand dwarfing the other three, is always arresting.
Yet on Tuesday, a crisp but bright winter’s morning, the car parks filled by conference and seminar goers, it felt cared for again. The towering banners swooping down from the top of the stands featuring the squad’s leading lights may be only superficial adornments but they reveal a willingness to acknowledge that this is a place that thousands of people treasure, rather than a once-a-fortnight revenue generator, the cost of whose upkeep peeved previous owners.

A lick of paint symbolises more than just a desire to tart the place up. The consideration shown for Elland Road’s importance in people’s affections is there in the Leeds United Supporters’ Trust-funded mural of the 1992 title-winning midfield - Gordon Strachan, Gary McAllister, David Batty and Gary Speed – with Howard Wilkinson that has given the once notorious Lowfields Road underpass, where opposition fans braved ambush, a significantly less menacing air. Similarly, the pavement telephone junction boxes that lead back into the city past Revie Road used to be uniformly drab in corporation khaki but are now vibrantly white, yellow and blue.
Slogans that may seem trite to others – Billy Bremner’s “side before self”, “the only place for us” and “marching on together” from the song Leeds, Leeds, Leeds – are writ large on everything from seats to facades and shirt collars, homilies and commandments that have nourished an identity. The Leeds United Superstore, even in the midst of the January sale, was well-stocked and staffed. Just a few years ago, when neglect was hard to differentiate from contempt, the range was so meagre they filled some shelves with scores of discount packs of Ainsley Harriott Savoury Rice. Welcome to an episode of Can’t Stock, Wont’ Stock: Schlep over from town for a replica kit, leave instead with a bargain dinner that required only rehydration.

There is a renewed sense of pride for Leeds United
Leeds United supporters are reconnecting with their club

On Friday, across Elland Road at the Old Peacock, where you can buy beer in quart pots that demand a two-hand grip, the bar will be rammed by teatime and a nervous excitement palpable in the hum. Fifteen years since Leeds dropped out of the Premier League, Bielsa’s approach and success so far has made the club and the city feel united again.
“I feel cautiously optimistic,” says Mick Hooson, a fan since 1970. “The style of football is a joy to watch compared with some of the stuff we’ve seen over previous seasons, we’ve got a team that dominates possession and regularly has twice as many shots on goal as the other side.
“The club was absent from the city centre for years but now has two shops [opened in 2016 and last summer] and you do see more stickers in cars, more people wearing hats or badges on their coats. We’ve been away so long that there are supporters now who weren’t born when we were last in the Premier League.

“My son, who is 19 in a couple of weeks, went to his first game on Boxing Day when he was four but his generation at school, Leeds supporters were not the majority – it was Chelsea, Man Utd even. When I was at school there were no Man Utd fans – there was one Liverpool fan who actually came from Liverpool but everyone else supported Leeds.”
It’s not just a generation of fans that has been lost to Leeds but a couple of generations of players, too, as another fan of almost 50 years’ standing, Fergus Dick, points out. “We’ve sold James Milner, Lewis Cook, all those kids,” he says. “If we could just get to the point where we don’t have to sell our young players anymore. And Bielsa loves the kids – to see Jack Clarke roaring down the wing fills your heart. We need those kids to stay and the only way to keep them is to go up. So we’ve got to go up.”

While there is anxiousness, there is no hysteria beyond the customary blowhards on Twitter, and Bielsa’s character has been instrumental in that. “He’s so humble and a real servant of the game,” says Adam Pope, the BBC Radio Leeds club correspondent and commentator. “There’s no false modesty, no deflection tactics when explaining defeats, he always supports referees and is totally willing to take responsibility when things go wrong.”

Despite the Championship defeats by Hull and Nottingham Forest and QPR’s victory in the FA Cup last week, Leeds continue to create chances but have been dogged by a failure to be clinical even during the run of seven wins that preceded them. No one has had more shots per game than Leeds, and only Norwich have managed more shots on target, but as Bielsa pointed out, they have the efficiency of a bottom-five team converting them, putting away only one in five or six chances rather than their promotion rivals’ one in every two or three.

Having lost Jamal Blackman, Samu Saiz and Lewis Baker from the squad that started the season, Leeds’ progress with essentially the same team that ended last season in 13th is testament to Bielsa’s coaching skill. “They have the ability to stay there,” says Pope. “But it’s whether they have the resources and whether they get that bit of luck with injuries that they haven’t had at all. There’s a real excitement but there’s also a feeling of ‘it’s Leeds, it can go wrong at any time’.”
Bielsa’s preference for a small squad, confidence in his youth players to cope when the injuries have mounted and inclination to keep attacking, to try to win every game, is a high-risk strategy. But any attempts to mitigate this in style and recruitment would feel more like emasculation than compromise. Leeds hired him knowing his methods and are where they are because they have empowered and entrusted him.

“He has instilled a belief in the players that his ideas and way of playing the game is the way to go about it,” says Gray. “The players are all buying into it and everybody’s in harmony.” Even with major fitness concerns for Pablo Hernandez, who has made 10 goals and scored another seven, Bielsa says: “We have no excuses whatsoever not to win against Derby. We have the players - we have to reach the win, with optimism.”
That word, “optimism”, keeps recurring and Leeds fans have long since appropriated the “Leeds are falling apart again” taunt as their own song of scornful defiance, a sarcastic weapon against pessimism.

As Gray says, “You can’t not have hope now. Aye, we’ve had a little blip but we’re top of the division going into the second week of January, playing good football. This is a great opportunity – you’re not going to get a much better one.”

[NJ2]

Any info on the lad Shaugnessy we’ve taken on loan?

[Bishop Briggs]

Derby accuse Leeds of spying - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46840353 

"Derby County have said the person police spoke to acting suspiciously outside their training ground on Thursday was an employee of Leeds United's football staff.

"The sixth-placed Rams visit the Championship leaders on Friday.

They said in a statement they were "in discussion with Leeds club officials in relation to this incident"."

Should a feisty game. Bring it on! 

[JakeSAFC]

Derby accuse Leeds of spying - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46840353 
"Derby County have said the person police spoke to acting suspiciously outside their training ground on Thursday was an employee of Leeds United's football staff.
"The sixth-placed Rams visit the Championship leaders on Friday.
They said in a statement they were "in discussion with Leeds club officials in relation to this incident"."
Should a feisty game. Bring it on! [emoji4]

God bless Marcelo Bielsa

[WALMOT]

[Bishop Briggs]

5 hours ago, JakeSAFC said:

 

God bless Marcelo Bielsa

 

He doesn't give a toss - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/football/46546453

"Yesterday I talked to Frank Lampard and he told me I didn't respect the fair play rules," continued Bielsa.

"I have a different point of view but the important thing is what Frank Lampard and Derby County think.

"I didn't ask permission from Leeds United to do it so it's my responsibility.

"Without trying to find a justification, I've been using this kind of practice since the qualifications for the World Cup with Argentina."

[Rab B Nesbit]

[Diamond8]

We're Leeds United, we do what we want.

[JakeSAFC]

We're Leeds United, we spy when we want.

FTFY

[Cptn Hooch]

OYF keeper catching the Derby player in the face with a high boot....got away with one there

[JakeSAFC]

Probably the most complete performance by a Leeds team in a long time. Absolutely bitched Derby, god bless our spy.

[Distant Doonhamer]

All this chat about Leeds boss being punished.

Has he actually broken any rules? 

If not then surely he can`t be punished.

[Rab B Nesbit]

2 hours ago, Diamond8 said:

We're Leeds United, we do what we want.

 

Edited January 11, 2019 by Rab B Nesbit

[Distant Doonhamer]

26 minutes ago, Rab B Nesbit said:

 

Is this a Whitehill Welfare ( and Liverpool) fan laughing at an Airdrie fan calling Leeds United we.

If so