New manager.. but when and who?

We all seem sure that a new manager is to be installed at ER sooner or later; even Warnock himself looks resigned to losing his job, whether it’s this week, next month or in the summer no one knows.

There seems to be three candidates that are primarily mentioned, Nigel Adkins, Gus Poyet & Paolo Di Canio. The thing they have in common is that they all play or at least would like to play the kind of football the fans at ER want, quick passing on the floor football, very much unlike the “hoofball” that Warnock shows us week in, week out.

My preferred choice, or rather the only of the three I’d ever like to see managing my club is Nigel Adkins, he’s proven at both out current level and was, in my opinion, on his way to keeping Southampton in the premiership before he, strangely enough, was sacked. He has back to back promotions with Southampton and proved that he didn’t need billions of £’s to get a good team together. He will need financial backing in Leeds as there are many areas that need strengthening, but I think that no matter who comes in he’ll need to be backed, not even Guardiola or Morten Olsen could get promoted with our current team.

The second guy mentioned is former Leeds assistant Gus Poyet, a guy who I never understood why people are so desperate to get back, what exactly was it he achieved at Leeds? All I remember was him and Wise managing to get a pretty good Leeds team relegated and then him fucking off when London called for him, not to be a manager or an assistant, but to be a translator for Juande Ramos, a complete joke.

One of my fondest ER memories include Poyet however, I was sat close to the visitors’ dugout when we played Brighton in Feb 2010, and some guy behind me started shouthing; “Poyet, Poyet!!” When Gus turned around the guy screamed; “You f****** Chelsea reject” haha now that was fun! And by far the best thing I remember Poyet for. Poyet has managed to get a League One promotion and then not much else, he’s keeping Brighton in the Championsship and it’s only fair to say they’re doing quite well, but I think that with the money he’s spending he should be able to do better than he is.

The last guy who has been mentioned, more and more since he left Swindon yesterday is Paolo Di Canio. They say you should never mix sports and politics and that is very much true in this case, I can’t bare to see a dedicated facist manage my favorite football team, I really can’t, I’d hate every second of that. I know there was published a article a few days ago where Di Canio spoke among other things about politics, but it won’t change my view on him though (Article is here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/paolo-di-canio-my-life-speaks-for-me-6273526.html).

But like I said, don’t mix sports and politics so now I’ll tell why I don’t want him from a footballing perspective.  

Every manager needs to start somewhere but I can’t really see how a manager with experience from League 1&2 can step up and manage a club like Leeds United, with the massive expectations and constant pressure from fans and media. We need a guy who has been through it all, much like Neil Warnock, but safe to say that this marriage is a bit unhappy only 12 months in. Di Canio is known to be controversial; I can only see him and Leeds United end in tears, probably during a fight with Diouf, fans or something like that.

I’ll be the first to admit that I might be colored by his personality when I judge him, but either way I really can’t see him take the step up from Swindon to Leeds.

So dear GFH Capital, get Adkins in, show ambition and show the fans what your plans with Leeds United are, we’re all more than happy to give you another year before you deliever a promotion, but I think most people would like to know what you intentions are and how you see the future of OUR club.

Oh, and this picture should say more than a thousand words on why Di Canio is all sorts of wrong for us (or for anyone imo).

T.O.M.A part deux

It was a wonderful feeling when GFH Capital announced that they had managed to get Ken Bates out of Leeds United, a little less wonderful when we learned that Ken Bates was to be installed as President after the 2012/13 season, but still nice for us all to know that almost 8 years of Bates was over.

When the takeover was completed I did this blog; http://kimba1980.blogspot.dk/2012/11/toma-is-no-more.html and most of the questions I raised in that is yet to be answered by GFH led by David Haigh & Salem Patel.

But last night there was a new twist to the lovely saga of Leeds United takeovers, just seven weeks after they had bought the club, BBC Leeds could tell us all that we might be in for another annoying takeover saga.

GFH were quick to make a statement on leedsunited.com that no offers had been accepted and continued the statement by saying some stuff about what they had done so far, seemed a bit strange in my opinion. What I had preferred for GFH to say was that the offer had been REJECTED, to write not accepted gives me a vibe that they're saying to the supposed interested parties; Come back with a better offer and we might just listen. I realise that GFH are a bank and that Leeds United is an investment, I had just never thought we had to go through another takeover already, it seems that only Leeds United could be sold twice in a season.

I remember that Ken Bates said that GFH were the right guys for Leeds United and the future of the club, I have long suspected that GFH were the only ones who were willing to name him President and that that was the reason he sold to them. Thats the positive about potential new owners I suppose, they don't have to make Ken Bates President of LUFC, so if someone new comes in we can all pray that this means Ken finally f**** off for good.

Rumours say it might be former LUFC board member and current owner of Hull F.C rugby league club, whoever it is, if anyone, I hope we can soon get some real closure in Leeds and that we after almost ten years of shit can move forward and have our club back where it belongs and where we, the fans, want to see it.

Marching On Together

The transfer window

So the January transfer window came and went and as always I was glued to the screen hoping Leeds would give me a few surprises, and wtf, they actually did.

The most positive thing for me in the window is that we managed to get rid of some deadwood brought into the club under Simon Grayson. Roges, Nunez, Rachubka, Connolly & Pugh are just no where near good enough to play for Leeds United, so it's positve that we got rid of them.

On the hand I'm not to chuffed about the sale of Becchio, I think its a bad deal.

• He's my favorite player, but it will always be team first so I can deal with that.
• Getting a unplayed player and very little cash in return for your best striker and top 10 all-time scorer seems like an awful deal to me.
• I had preferred to get £3M straight up and spend them in the summer which is not as expensive as the January window. 

Unsurprisingly Warnock has declared himself very happy with the way the window has gone and why wouldn't he be, he got rid of players he didn't need and he got rid of Becchio, the guy responsible for our awful style of play, I'll say this Colin, I look forward to our Leeds United being a passing team from tomorrow.

However Warnock has to be happy, he managed to get in a few players that he felt could improve our team (more of his long term targets, that he's tried to get for years in different clubs) and he's done it without much finacial backing from new owners GFH - So I guess Warnock actually have a reason to be happy.

GFH however still have a lot to prove to Leeds fans, they talked a great game when the takeover was ongoing but also stated that "silly money" would not be spend, when hearing that 500K-750K is to much for them, one has to wonder what they see as silly money. Both Haigh & Patel went into Twitter hiding after the Spurs game and just returned this morning with a "Welcome to Leeds Warnock, Morison & Habibou" tweet, very convenient, in my opinion the could learn a lot from the Peterborough chairman, Darragh MacAnthony, who filled fans in all day long over deals and stuff going on - much like GFH said they would.

I'm looking forward to seeing GFH show their finacial muscles in the summer, or to see whether they've just filled us with hot air.

Marching on together and welcome to Leeds Warnock, Habibou & Morison!