Young player of the year

It's time for young player of the year and it's pretty obvious that it can only be Sam Byram. I'm not sure how many Leeds fans knew who this kid was 12 months ago, but I'm pretty confident that every Leeds fan knows him now.

Sam has had an amazing season, he's played in every game but that last two and have been one of our best and most consistent performers, it's very clear that we have a wonderful player on our hands, whether he is still here after the summer transfer window we'll see, but I really hope so, this guy is, in my humble opinion, a future Leeds captain.

So, young Sam, thanks for a great season, it's safe to say that apart for TOMA and Warnock fucking off you been one of the only highlights!

Marching on together

Game of the year 2012/13

It's time for the second award of the season and this time it game of the year, this game had it all, a new start after Warnock, a win, safety from promotion and a very unlikely hero.

The game I'm talking about is our home game against the Owls from Sheffield, a local derby with extra attention on it due to a supposed Leeds fan running onto the pitch at Hillsborough and hitting Owls keeper Kirkland and the game was also a early kick off for perhaps the same reason.

A few of the Danish Whites were present at Elland Road and the texts I got at half time were not to positive as we were down 0-1. In a few minutes in the second half Luke Varney suddenly decided to score two great goals and give Leeds a lead, and allthough the final 25 minutes were very hard to get through we did it! A win for Leeds and a win for new manager Brian McDermott, but most of all a win for the great fans who had endured so much agony during the season, I'll admit that the tension was so hard on me that I actually shed a tear at FT, I guess thats just how much passion I have for our club.

Congrats to Luke Varney, this will probably be the first and last time you're mentioned in one of my award blogs.

Marching on together

McDermott doing it for Redders.

Goal of the year 2012/13

It's been a forgettable season for Leeds United, the highs have been few and far between so my awards for Player of the year, Young player of the year, Goal of the year and match of the year have been quite easy, I hope to have a harder time finding them next season.

I'll start out with Goal of the year, and could it be anything else then the Argentine Becchios goal against Chelsea? No it could not.

The goal had it all, great play from defence to attack and a clinical finish as we knew and loved from Becchio, furthermore it gave us belief that we'd actually beat Chelsea out of the cup, if only for 30 mins, all in all a great goal and a nice memory to have.. Who knows when we'll be able to meet/beat Chelsea again?

The goal also came just a few days before the, supposed, GFH Capital revolution was to begin at ER, well, we're still waiting but enough about that.

Congrats Luciano on your last goal of the season for Leeds.

Marching On Together   

So bye bye Colin

So Neil Warnock finally left Leeds United, I know he will disagree when he reads this (and he will..) but I actually think he's left us in a worse state then he got us. He managed to sell some the decent players around, Snoddy, Becchio & Clayton and replaced them with "working men" like Austin, Varney, Green & Diouf - Not impressive.

And for a team of "workers" I don't think I've ever seen so little passion, so something was wrong, the passion that Warnock had in Sheffield United was dead and never arrieved with him at Elland Road. And his man management have been a complete joke, the whole blame game he plays week in week out is something you see in kindergarden, not something you should see a man with so many years in the game do.

His post game interviews have been somewhat comical and has made him the laughing stock among Leeds fans on Twitter, not once have I heard him take any blame for results or/and awful play, and not once has he blamed one of "his" boys (Kenny, Pearce, Pelts, Brown, Varney etc.) but the players he inherited from Grayson have been given loads of stick, the likes of McCormack and Lees must feel happy today knowing that they'll never have to deal with him again, hell Tom Lees might even crack a wee smile!

So even if I think it's three-four months to late I'd still like to applaud that he's out of the club, now all we need is a "New Shirt, New Start, Part Deux"

Colin Wanker, have a nice life down south, don't ever come back to ER and thanks for NOTHING!

So, what is going on exactly?

We are now a few months into the GFH Capital ownership of Leeds United, and we know as much as we did under Bates, if Bates' regime was like North Korea, I guess GFH's is like Iraq under Saddam.

We're told nothing and it seems like Salem Patel and David Haigh are going thier own ways and are not really sure on what they're doing or of what GFH want to do with the club.  Rumuors surfaced a few weeks ago that the club was back up for sale, but again, we haven't been told anything. Then the media said that a guy was close to buying the club, but again, we're not really told anything.

I'm getting sick of it to be honest, our club is a laughing stock, thank god for Blackburn being more of a joke - I don't need a billionaire buying Leeds and us "buying" a promotion and later a title like Man City have, but I demand stability and some sort of ambition now, not more lies and propaganda placed in the media from owners, manager or whoever feel they want to defend the owners actions.

Get new owners in, find a proper young manager, give youth a chance and lets see where that takes us - we, the fans, really as the banner say don't deserve this shit anymore. I want openness and clarity from the club and a proper plan of their ambitions, if the ambition is to stay in the championsship, fine, but let us know, no more of this, "this is our year" shit, we're starting to sound like Liverpool.

So Haigh and Patel, sell up and leave and please make sure you take Ken Bates with you out the door, just drop him out of the airplane somewhere around Monaco on your way back to Dubai or whereever you want to go!

Leeds United and the Norwich obsession

When I first became a Leeds fan back in the early 90’s the games I looked forward to and was told about were the games against the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea. Games with a history, games that meant everything, to fans of both Leeds and our opponents. 

Leeds United and the fall from grace is a well known story and games between us and the teams we compared ourselves to became few and far between, which also meant that the rivalries died out a bit, however I do believe that the clubs mentioned miss us in the Premier League, I base this on the fact that whoever they play they waste no time in singing: “We all hate Leeds scum”, apparently that is the only thing the “big clubs” can agree on, they hate us – but don’t worry, the feeling is mutual.

Until I joined Twitter I actually still thought of those clubs as our big rivals and as the clubs we aspired to be, but it seems that quite a few people on Twitter think that out rivals these days are Norwich, Wigan, Huddersfield and Millwall? I can live with Huddersfield as they’re a local rival and also with Millwall because they’re a sick bunch, but really fellow Leeds fans, Wigan? Norwich?

I realise that Norwich in recent years have managed to get quite a few of our better players and that Wigan are in the Premier League for 8^th year running, but still, to see them as our biggest rivals and have more focus on them and their games (or any other games then Leeds for that matter) is just pathetic in my opinion. That I can see Norwich's starting 11 and a swipe at Becchio, Howson, Snoddy or Bradley Johnson written or retwettet before I see anything about Leeds seems wrong to me, we're all quick enough to make fun of other fans who are more concerned by other teams then their own but it should go both ways I think.

For me Leeds are as big a club as Liverpool or Manchester United, we’ve just suffered a massive fall, but that’s no reason to change rivals and creating rivalries with the so called “tin pot clubs”, if anything that just makes us a “tin pot club” ourselves.  

If you look at Twitter Leeds/MOT/any Leeds player and other Leeds related stuff is trending almost every week, so why do we lower ourselves and compare us to small teams? If anything we should keep the “original” rivalries going so the “big teams” are prepared for us when we return, our fans are among the best in the country which we’ve proven time and time again when playing either Manchester United, Arsenal, Spurs, Manchester City or however in the cups – So let’s leave this weird “Norwich obsession” behind and focus on Leeds United and our march back towards the top of English football.

MOT

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).