We're gonna be Eggstra Royally fucked today Cyberkop

[Eddies Boots]

I don't know about "get fucked"... but the main issue here is that we don't expect Colin to get much money to spend on building his own team. So he does have to make this squad play better.
In an ideal world he would be building on Snodgrass, Clayton, Becchio, McCormack, White, Lees - but it looks like the money he will have to spend will come from selling (some of) them.
I would expect that he will get to swap loanees for his own - and in those dealings we will certainly have learned more about Colin by Xmas. As we will his preferred style of football for us.

But Jackos, given that we are not having to avoid relegation with this appalling run of form, what should we be expecting from the last few games of the season - and what are the areas of acceptable criticsm?

[jackos]

Well, I reckon that anyone who purports to be a decent football manager should be able to get the best from any set of players, rather than be dependent on assembling their own team. But the fact that since Colin joined:

- We've played some shitty football, and
- Haven't been successful.

Puts me in a position where Colin now has a hell of a lot to do to convince me he's not shit.

Are you pissed? Jesus n Jose couldn't make a decent team out if the shite Bates n Harvey have collected at ER. Larry couldn't, Colin can't. Warnock has no chance unless our clubs owners back him, as someone wrote earlier, getting out of L1 can be done on the cheap for a club of our stature. But you can't get out of The Champ by selling you best players n replacing them with freebies on 5 grand a week.

We can judge Colin after the summer, if hes still here, which I very much doubt.

Oh, get fucked you daft cunt. Our team was so utterly shit we were in the top half of the table, and close to the play-offs, all fucking season. At the basic level, in that I doubt it is ever possible to gain promotion under Bates because we always sell our best players, I agree with you.

I just hate this revisionist bullshit; we weren't and aren't that bad. But our current, average, team is being poorly managed.

Revisionist? D We've hardly won a game since the start of December Petal, since then we have lost Howson n Keogh, n Clayton is half the player he was 6 months ago. Me thinks you are the revisionist luv. You think Warnock has made things worse, perhaps, I don't see any improvement yet, but I know we where fucked with Grayson in charge while Bates owns the club. So I don't see the point in jumping in Colin's back. Simple as that.

[jackos]

But Jackos, given that we are not having to avoid relegation with this appalling run of form, what should we be expecting from the last few games of the season - and what are the areas of acceptable criticsm?

Easy enough, get behind the team and it's manager, and stay focused in the problem. Bates. Warnock has had his honeymoon, he's a big boy. But I am not buying the idea that we where great under Grayson, n have shit since he left. The protests where gaining memento while Grayson was managing our team because fans could see we where going nowhere. Bates will be made up if he can push the blame onto his manager, that might even have been his plan when he signed Warnock.

I have no problem with people complaining about Colin's tactics, or comparing him to Huddersfield's manager as long as its sensible, but people making out everything was great before Grayson left is getting boring. Things where not great, n Grayson was not fucking perfect.

[Son of Leeds]

Didn't see the Reading game because of other commitments, but my worry is partly one of age.

Larry may not have been the brilliant young manager we hoped, and Warnock may have a 'proven record', but that was in the kick and rush era. His success at QPR was with rich backers.

I think we make the mistake of exaggerating the relative merits of these managers. The line between winning and losing is very small: in a hundred metres spring the gold medalist only wins by less than a second over silver: but s/he wins consistently by a fraction. Most managers are exactly the same, but the best are likewise consistently just that little bit better. In Formula 1, to take another example, engineers work at great expense on a car to give it a 20th of a second more efficiency on a corner.

My first worry is that Warnock belongs essentially to the past; the cajole and shout and 'show me your work-rate' school. But the teams rising from lower to higher leagues over the last few years have done it with the ball on the ground and players interchanging positions. Grayson did at least try to get a passing game and with players quite flexible. It just didn't happen often enough.

My second is that he's English and I don't think speaks another language. Leeds seem limited almost exclusively to English-speaking players. Becchio, Gradel,Nunez, and whom else have appeared from non-English speaking areas, and one of them went to his mother language asap. This enormously limits our chance of finding bargains. I'm not sure how many foreign players there are at Southampton and Reading but I suspect there are more than at Leeds.

There is a legacy problem at Leeds. The great Revie team wot I watched as a boy may have got the image of dirty Leeds but they had defenders who were better on the ball and in front of goal than many midfield players. But the image of Leeds is 'we are hard, we love hard tackers, seige mentality, everybody hates us, we luv it'. This means when Nockers gets the team huffing and puffing against Southampton we get excited. It would be much better if we applauded clever possession football. Big Sam has whinged about West Ham fans because they moaned at his style of football, but in a way I'm with them. They should demand the kind of football for which the club is known, if only because it is more likely to get success long-term.

Leeds is a bit like ancient Britons when the Romans come in red skirts and shiny metal things on their tits. You can see a Bates-Warnock combination facing the legions. 'Hey, look a those puffs with wimpy protective stuff and girly gear. Pass the woad and shove another baby on the sacrificial fire. We'll murder this lot. Ok, loanees, forwaaaaaarrrrdddd, aaahhh....'

Romans 5 Ancient Britons 2

[jackos]

Spot on SOL, signing a manager who says he will retire in 1.5 years in our position looks like a daft idea. If/when Bates doesn't back him this summer it will look even worse. Colin said he needed to sign 3-4 players in the loan window he got 1. They are already back tracking on rebuilding the team this summer, same old story, The Manager can spend the money he generates... Who do we have worth selling... Get ready for the excuses. Hopefully Warnock will walk if he sees he is not getting the backing he expected. That has to be à good thing? We can't let Bates go on like this for another 5 years. He backs Colin, or Colin walks, or Colin ends his career looking like a looser?

[Mustafaster]

Spot on SOL, signing a manager who says he will retire in 1.5 years in our position looks like a daft idea. If/when Bates doesn't back him this summer it will look even worse. Colin said he needed to sign 3-4 players in the loan window he got 1. They are already back tracking on rebuilding the team this summer, same old story, The Manager can spend the money he generates... Who do we have worth selling... Get ready for the excuses. Hopefully Warnock will walk if he sees he is not getting the backing he expected. That has to be à good thing? We can't let Bates go on like this for another 5 years. He backs Colin, or Colin walks, or Colin ends his career looking like a looser?

If Colin walks >Bates won't give a fuck. He'll just rub his hands and comgatulate himself on how he fooled everyone, yet again, and how easy it was.
The fans will shout and moan, LUST will put out an excellent press statement ..... and some new work will start on the East Stand, as you were, gents

[jackos]

So there is fuck all we can do, n nowt to hope for Musta? Other than the old bastard dying? N fuck knows what nightmare he's has dreamt up for us when that happens.

[BobbyD]

I said right at the start of him signing about this blame deflection, but how many fickle cunts will really actually blame Colin ? I know we're a fickle bunch but FFS.

Colin walks or fails next season without CLEAR backing then it's obvious who to blame. Then let the protesting start again.

Hey ho. Derby tomorow......

[moscowhite]

...but people making out everything was great before Grayson left is getting boring. Things where not great, n Grayson was not fucking perfect.

As keeps being pointed out, nobody is actually saying this.

And you keep missing a massive point in which most of us who aren't happy with Warnock are actually agreeing with you.

You complain about people being on Warnock's back because it gets us off Bates. What is actually happening is just the opposite. Look around you. People are lapping this shit up. We're losing game after game, we can barely score a goal, we've had our biggest home defeat in history, the quality of football has disintegrated: and yet, people think it's brilliant and that Bates has appointed a brilliant manager.

It's the emperor's new clothes. And when I, or anyone else, points out that actually what we're watching here is fucking shit, it's to point out that, as you say, Bates has fooled everyone and taken the pressure off himself.

If/when people wake up to Warnock - or if he walks - nobody, but nobody, is going to be having a go at Warnock. Just the same as hardly anyone was really having a go at Grayson while he was here. The pressure will be firmly on Bates, just as you suggest.

At the moment though, too many people have this deluded view that because Browny and Pughy and Robboy are getting some blood on their boots, this is somehow better and Warnock's a genius who'll get us promoted when he signs ten players and everything is better even as we lose, lose, lose. That is what is taking the pressure off Bates.

//////////

Meanwhile, Warnock is the manager, and criticism of him as our manager is valid. So far from Warnock, in terms of things he alone can influence, he has told us that Snodgrass would have a free role and become the centre of our team: he hasn't; he told us Becchio would be winning every header from now on: he isn't; he said after the Watford game he'd be bringing the kids in against Reading: he brought in Bromby and Pugh. He's got the team playing as if he's come in to find us in a relegation dogfight, when the smart thing to have done would have been to get us back to whatever Grayson was doing right when he got it right. Bates aside, I just don't think he's doing a very good job, and there's no reason not to say so.

//////////

And on the point of Warnock not being able to get anything but hoofball out of these players, and that he'll play much better football next season when he has his own players in: here's the news. It's August, we haven't signed anyone good, because we haven't got any money. He simply isn't going to get six/seven/eight new players. He will have to find a way to make what we have play better, and he's shown precious little sign of being able to do it so far.

/////////

On the 'Dirty Leeds' thing: I actually love to see tackles flying in and players putting their effort in. That clip from the Sunderland game on the 89/90 video, when players are flying over the top of each other's backs and Davision stops running to turn around and wave his fist at someone? Love it.

For one thing, though, the game has changed and it's harder to get away with. For another, Brown and Pugh (and Thompson) aren't good enough at it to get away with it. With a different ref we could have come out of yesterday with all three of them suspended at a time when Bates' enormo-squad is down to nothing. It's fucking stupid.

And also, the last manager who came in and said he wanted to bring some of the 'Dirty Leeds' back was Dennis Wise. And to be fair to him, he did. And we got relegated.

[jackos]

Sure, n it seems people just luv to be proved right, nowt new in that. I had hoped Bates would back Warnock, I was pleased when he signed, cause I thought the alternative was Redders. I also thought Bates might let him bring in a few new faces to strengthen our midfield. None of that happened. The way our results have disintegrated since December is a disgrace. The last month has been sickeningly poor. The financial news appalling. I am actually surprised that it could get worse. It did. Do I think Grayson would have made the playoffs with this squad. No I don't really, nor I am not even certain getting there would have been a good thing while Bates is in charge.

Edited to try make more sense ...

[BobbyD]

Sure, n it seems people just luv to be proved right, nowt new in that. I had hoped Bates might back Warnock, I was pleased when he signed, cause I thought the alternative was Redders. I also thought Bates might let him bring in a few new faces to strengthen our midfield. None of that happened. The way our results have disintegrated since December is a disgrace. The last month has been sickening. Do I think Grayson would have made the playoffs with this squad. No I don't.

This is the thing though Bates et al must realise that if they don't Colin what he wants there will be no possibility to shift the blame. Surely this is what the old cunt will want. The willies were put up them with the protests and they had to do something, so Colin arrives and most of us must see that he needs some investment otherwise the crowd will be converted back to BATES OUT !

If he gets investment and fucks it up it will be COLIN OUT ! I personally want the fucking lot out, fuck it.

[the flying pig]

So there is fuck all we can do, n nowt to hope for Musta? Other than the old bastard dying? N fuck knows what nightmare he's has dreamt up for us when that happens.

supporters support, jackos. they support.

get yersen online & book a trip to the peterboro or leicester game, preferably watching from one of the new boxes - rates are very reasonable. have a nice slap-up meal in Howards beforehand.

or if that fails maybe just treat one of the bairns to some merchandise.



the world hasn't stopped going round

[Mustafaster]

So there is fuck all we can do, n nowt to hope for Musta? Other than the old bastard dying? N fuck knows what nightmare he's has dreamt up for us when that happens.

I dunno, mate.
It's very depressing. Bates is getting worse, I didn't think it was possible tbh, but the recent financial results are just astounding.
The club spends very little on the playing squad, has made a fuckin mint on the transfer market, and yet we have to borrow shitloads of money at punitive rates from persons unknown becuase the club has no cash.
Fuck's sake!

Meanwhile we are playing the kind of football associated with Wise and Blackwell, and we know where that got us. Warnock is doing what he sees to be the only thing he can, he sees there is little real quality in the squad so he tries to make up for it by running around a lot. Personally I think this is doomed to failure, because the other teams can simply run around just as much as us, and in the end quality is what wins matches, always has, always will.
I don't have the answer, wish I did.
But we have to keep protesting and pointing out what Bates is doing I suppose, there's little else we can do.
LUST seems to be about the only game in town right now so I support them wholeheartedly. I think they need to have a good hard look at their position, the time has come for more outright opposition to Bates. I know Gary and The Dans claim that "Bates is incidental". It's a good sound bite, but it's not true. Forget Lorimer, forget Penfold, forget Gwylliams, forget Fry, go for Bates.
The list of Bates' lies, half truths and contradictions over 7 years is now longer than a Russian novel. Time to go on the offensive for me. LUST has some very abler people on the boards and helping out, they should spend the time between now and the end of the season preparing a definitive list and launch a real broadside. There are plenty of people in the media more than willing to give it publicity.
Leeds fans call for Bates to go shock horror probe!
Probably won't work, but what else are ya gonna do?

[gazurtoids]

My first worry is that Warnock belongs essentially to the past; the cajole and shout and 'show me your work-rate' school. But the teams rising from lower to higher leagues over the last few years have done it with the ball on the ground and players interchanging positions. Grayson did at least try to get a passing game and with players quite flexible. It just didn't happen often enough.

Yep, it does seem a bit anachronistic. I do hold out some hope that Warnock is quite as one-dimensional as we fear -- I don't think his QPR and Palace sides were so direct -- but his opening gambit doesn't fill me with confidence.

There is a legacy problem at Leeds. The great Revie team wot I watched as a boy may have got the image of dirty Leeds but they had defenders who were better on the ball and in front of goal than many midfield players. But the image of Leeds is 'we are hard, we love hard tackers, seige mentality, everybody hates us, we luv it'. This means when Nockers gets the team huffing and puffing against Southampton we get excited. It would be much better if we applauded clever possession football. Big Sam has whinged about West Ham fans because they moaned at his style of football, but in a way I'm with them. They should demand the kind of football for which the club is known, if only because it is more likely to get success long-term.

Now, I wasn't around at the time but the impression I've always been given is that that team, the one who earned us the Dirty Leeds moniker, essentially said to their opponents: if you want to play, we'll play but if you want to fight, we can fight too, and we'll beat you either way. That, to me, is the right approach. If we were ever up ourselves enough to codify something like a "leeds united way", I think that would be it.

Also: in full agreement with moscow's post.

[Top Cat Cooper]

My take on the "bigger picture" is this, I was happy with SG and didnt want him to leave/get sacked, I thought he was just the right up and coming young manager we needed and both he and the team would continue to develop and improve and we would gain promotion to the prem in two/three seasons after winning promotion to the Championship. There were ominus signs though in League 1 when we almost fucked it up after being comfortable for so long and made it by a whisker but I still expected us to go on to consolidate and improve in the Championship.

However, the reason I felt it was time for a change of manager was as has already been pointed out many times, SG's career was as a CB yet he has failed in three years to sort out the defence, not 9 games 3 years, plus despite Bates I don't think his dealings in the transfer market were very good, yes I know we were only able to bring in either cheap transfers or loanees, but how many players did we go through during his tenure and how many actually turned out to be decent or shrewd signings that in a lot of cases ended up on the bench and were hardly used, Webber is now another example under Warnock. I know your response to this will be to blame Bates, but I think this is why he stopped backing SG and even allowing for Bates cheap transfers and loanees I think SG could have been a bit shrewder in the market, assuming it was him making the signings which we may never know.

So, with results and performances deteriorating and no end in sight to our defensive problems I honestly thought SG had taken us as far as he could and it was time for a change and was pleased when Colin signed for no other reason than his track record in taking teams up from this division. Also, I quite like his no nonsense approach which if we want any chance at all of changing Bates transfer policy then he is the manager to do it but I am under no illusions about his style of football and agree with whats been said that we played better football on the ground under SG but only in patches, whether his current style will continue remains to be seen, but like I said in an earlier post West Ham fans for all their moaning will take promotion if it comes and am sure we will be no different.

As has been mentioned it's a thin line between winning and losing, we could so easily have won the Southampton and West Ham games and we almost gained a point here with 10 men so 7 points would have made all the difference but you don't always get what you deserve in football either by winning or losing. The disappointing results/performances under Colin have been Forest and Watford, apart from that at the time of playing we have played 5 out of the top 6 teams so it was always going to be a difficult period but you can put whatever spin you want on it to suit your argument. I was just pleased to see a Leeds team go out and play for the shirt which I thought was lacking under SG and no I am not saying that tackles like Pugh's and Thompsons are acceptable or that is the way I want to see my team play, just that they at least put a shift in and want to play for this great club and show it in their performances. If Colin gets us in the top two next season with boring football I will settle for that as a compromise, if he doesen't, then that is the time to judge him imo not after 9 games, in the meantime I just want to try and be as positive as a glass half full will allow and get behind the new manager and the team and see where it takes us MOT

Am sure I have a tin hat round here somewhere........

[Man Called Sun]

SG's career was as a CB yet he has failed in three years to sort out the defence, not 9 games 3 years

I'm reluctant to wade in on this one but in Grayson's first year and a bit (ie in L1), this is exactly what he did do. It was only last season, at the start of which we'd have all been happy with mid-table, did we threaten to become a Keegan-era Newcastle. We also expected to score fuck all without Beckford, yet were among the top scorers in the division, having a fucking whale of a time in the process. All with the same robbing bastard behind the desk as we do now.

[AndyPaul]

I don't think it was possible to see what Grayson's potential was under the current administration at Leeds. I believe the same thing about Warnock.

I happen to believe that both managers are very different but very good in their own right its just they never stood /won't stand a chance under the cunt running this club.

I know its not as simple as blaming Bates for everything, but pretty much all the shit at this club stems from him.

[MightyWhite]

Great post TCC

[Quiffy]

my twopenneth, for what it's worth is that colin is probably the right man for now. i quite enjoyed the backs against the wall tough tackling of the reading game. most new managers can't suddenly change the way the players play, but they can change the attitude of those players and it was good to see they really didn't want to lose when the odds were massively stacked against them. after thompson's departure we were 11/1 or 14/1 to win and i thought we had a chance of sneaking it until their late goals, which is better than what i was expecting after 15 minutes.. personally i don't think we'd have seen such a battling performance under grayson. i don't think grayson is a bad manager at all, but something seemed to have gone wrong off the pitch, which together with the sale of our best players meant he was unfortunately a lame duck.

we've still got he same players as under grayson, so i don't see how we can expect consistently better performances though there have been signs that, like under grayson, we can perform better sometimes. the problem is consistency, a problem that almost all the division seems to have. we're not alone in that.

we're rightly midtable, but it seems every now and then, in the right light the wrinkles and flab don't show and we can still look half decent.

and why's colin the right man? because his track record of promotions may mean we've got a slightly better chance of signing some decent players in the summer and keeping our best ones. obviously this is assuming bates and harvey don't completely pull the rug from under his negotiations and support him a bit in the summer.

[the flying pig]

My take on the "bigger picture" is this, I was happy with SG and didnt want him to leave/get sacked, I thought he was just the right up and coming young manager we needed and both he and the team would continue to develop and improve and we would gain promotion to the prem in two/three seasons after winning promotion to the Championship. There were ominus signs though in League 1 when we almost fucked it up after being comfortable for so long and made it by a whisker but I still expected us to go on to consolidate and improve in the Championship.

However, the reason I felt it was time for a change of manager was as has already been pointed out many times, SG's career was as a CB yet he has failed in three years to sort out the defence, not 9 games 3 years, plus despite Bates I don't think his dealings in the transfer market were very good, yes I know we were only able to bring in either cheap transfers or loanees, but how many players did we go through during his tenure and how many actually turned out to be decent or shrewd signings that in a lot of cases ended up on the bench and were hardly used, Webber is now another example under Warnock. I know your response to this will be to blame Bates, but I think this is why he stopped backing SG and even allowing for Bates cheap transfers and loanees I think SG could have been a bit shrewder in the market, assuming it was him making the signings which we may never know.

So, with results and performances deteriorating and no end in sight to our defensive problems I honestly thought SG had taken us as far as he could and it was time for a change and was pleased when Colin signed for no other reason than his track record in taking teams up from this division. Also, I quite like his no nonsense approach which if we want any chance at all of changing Bates transfer policy then he is the manager to do it but I am under no illusions about his style of football and agree with whats been said that we played better football on the ground under SG but only in patches, whether his current style will continue remains to be seen, but like I said in an earlier post West Ham fans for all their moaning will take promotion if it comes and am sure we will be no different.

As has been mentioned it's a thin line between winning and losing, we could so easily have won the Southampton and West Ham games and we almost gained a point here with 10 men so 7 points would have made all the difference but you don't always get what you deserve in football either by winning or losing. The disappointing results/performances under Colin have been Forest and Watford, apart from that at the time of playing we have played 5 out of the top 6 teams so it was always going to be a difficult period but you can put whatever spin you want on it to suit your argument. I was just pleased to see a Leeds team go out and play for the shirt which I thought was lacking under SG and no I am not saying that tackles like Pugh's and Thompsons are acceptable or that is the way I want to see my team play, just that they at least put a shift in and want to play for this great club and show it in their performances. If Colin gets us in the top two next season with boring football I will settle for that as a compromise, if he doesen't, then that is the time to judge him imo not after 9 games, in the meantime I just want to try and be as positive as a glass half full will allow and get behind the new manager and the team and see where it takes us MOT

Am sure I have a tin hat round here somewhere........

not sure I get your drift - first para seems to say you wanted SG to say, subsequent ones that you wanted him, er, out.

I'm finding it hard to think about managers, as opposed to kb, right now.

i personally expect next season to be a fuckup. some idle speculation/amateur crystal ball gazing:

NW will tell bates he needs £x to guarantee promotion, £y to have a really good chance, and £z to have a fighting chance (and make it worth him staying in post). Bates will offer him a little less than £z, with maybe promises of a big bonus if we go up and/or money for players in january if we're still in 'the hunt'. We'll limp towards the january transfer window a little out of the po places. It'll be shit or bust time for bates. He won't stump up the cash. Neil will go in the springtime.