My expectations for the new season

After a long summer filled with takeover rumours we're finally getting back to what matters, football & Leeds United games.

Ken Bates is still around, but so are loads of new players and a new found belief in the team from the supporters and I must admit, I cant remember being this optimistic before a season in years.

Despite the failed/long underway takeover I think that NW has done a good job over the summer, he's managed to get some good players in and did his best to keep hold of Robert Snodgrass, RS is probably the one player we are yet to replace - It'll be exicting to see if NW pulls of a masterstroke of a transfer before the window shuts at the end of the month.

I expect Leeds to battle for automatic promotion and to at least get into the playoffs, I think NW can do a bit of magic, and this season he's made the team his own and not Simon Grayson (Kudos for the clean up NW - Still need Rachubka and Connolly to leave though).

I also expect Luciano Becchio to prove his worth to the team this season, if he scores 20+ goals, that could mean the difference between playoffs and automatic promotion. I'm also happy to see that we, so far, have managed to keep hold of Ross McCormack, without him we'd have been in loads of trouble last year and I'm looking for him to kick on this season and get 15-20 goals as well.

My major concern for this season is however who's going to assist on the goals? We've gotten some good players in and defence looks solid, but creativity is really lacking - we need a quality winger or two who can turn games around. Luke Varney has done great in pre-season and hopes are high for him - we need another winger to though, to become a double threat team, like when we had Maxi and Snoddy. I'd like to see Templeton of Hearts or George Boyd of Posh come in, but a loan from the Premier League might also work.

Finally my hope for the new season is that every supporter gets behind the team and help make ER a fortress and a scary place, for the opposition not for our own players, this could be our year!

Marching On Together!!

Expectations/Hopes:

Finish: Top 2
Top Scorer: Luciano Becchio 26 goals
Most Assists: Luke Varney 11
Player of the season: Jason Pearce
Young Player of the year: Aidy White

So Snoddy left...

A weeks, months and even years of speculation Robert Snodgrass called time on his Leeds spell exactly four years after Gary McAllister signed him from lowly Scottish side Livingston.
 
Snoddy was part of our promotion team from 2009/10 and became our best and most important player in our years in the Championship and even Ssayed after we lost his buddies  Beckford, Bradley Johnson, Gradel and Howson.
Norwich were sniffing about last summer and a £7-8M move seemed imminent, instead Leeds sold influential winger/forward Maxi Gradel for £2m and later local hero Morley boy Jonny Howson for about the same amount, I know wonder wheter the smart thing had been to sell Snoddy and use the £7m on extending Maxi and Jonnys contracts? Both stated they wanted to stay, but for class players you pay a price in salery, something Ken Bates is yet to learn.
 
So instead we opted to wait until three weeks before our first game to loose our captain and best player, we all knew he'd leave I suspect, so why not get it over with in May and use the fee on some targets we originally had? E.g. Portsmouth player Joel Ward.
 
Now NW is forced to buy his "second choiches" and while also being in the dark over our supposed takeover I understand if hes getting a bit sick of things, to his credit he seems pretty confident of our chances however! But selling class players who could do a job for us in the Premier League and replacing them with 30+ year olds for that record breaking promotion is hardly the way to build for LUFC's future.
 
I do however understand Snoddy, I cant see us becoming more the play Off contenders at best and he wants/deserves football at the highest level - the loyalty seen by Revies team is not around anymore, especially not if you in the second tier of English football and is gifted with a bit if talent.

Leeds Uniteds off-season until now

So like every other Leeds fan I am a bit disappointed by the lack of transfer activity from the club. One should think that we'd be used to these things from Leeds & Bates, and I guess in some ways we are, but I just had so much faith in Warnock and his promisses of 3-4 players in before his holiday - Holiday came and, almost, went and still the only new signing at ER remains center back Jason Pearce, without a doubt a great signing, but I had hoped for so much more. I was shocked to read that we could't afford Joel Ward or even free transfer target Paul Green, but then again we'll never know whether that story is true or not.

Warnocks retained list has also proven a big disappointment, half of the people on it is heavily linked away from the club, Ross McCormack, Snoddy, Aidy White and Lonergan, and people off the list have gotten zero attention from potential buyers. But looking at other clubs no one has really made a mark in the market yet, which gives me some hope that we might still get a few great signings in and get rid of some of our deadwood.

Among with the lack of transfers theres been massive romours of investments, takeovers or sponsorships in Leeds, and hopefully something will happen sooner rather then later - We do need some funds and we need to dig deep to get our beloved club out of the championsship.

I'll not take a stand on the takerover/investment talk before I read something on the official site, far to many romours is flying around on twitter and facebook, and can't get my head around which ones are true or not - so watch Leedsunited.com - hopefully they'll provide some answers before too long.

With regards to the transfers I refuse to panic (YET), like I've said, no one has really been on the market yet, and until the ball gets rolling from other clubs I don't expect to much for Leeds. Lets all agree to panic if we 6 weeks from now still haven't signed a soul ;)

Keep the faith and march on together!

Here's a picture of me age 5 before the World Cup in Mexico to give you a good laugh!
Euro2012 Go Denmark!

Goal of the year

Goal of the season was scored in Leicester in October. Following the thrashing we recieved from Blackpool days earlier, many had feared out trip to Leicester, but Leeds played one of their best games of the season and won it 1-0 on a stunning strike from Adam Clayton.

I didn't hurt his chances of winning goal of the year that it was scored against Kasper Schmeichel, a guy I really don't rate at all, despite him and me both being Danish.

The season have ended for Leeds and we might never see Adam Clayton in a Leeds shirt again. NW decided to transfer list him and I'd expect some decent teams to show interest in him, but if you'll win nothing else with Leeds Adam, I am happy to have you win goal of the year!

Marching on together 

Game of the season

There were two main contenders for game of the season, one was Forest away and the other were Millwall at home, both comes to mind because we said goodbye to our beloved Leeds legend Gary Speed at those two.
I have chosen the home game against Millwall as my game of the season, because of the emotions in the stands and the heartbreaking image of Batty, Macca & Strachan saying goodbye to their friend.

I listened to both games on the radio and could hardly hold back the tears when hearing the fans 11 minute tribute to Speedo in Nottingham (ending with Snoddy scoring as the 11th minute ran out), or when i heard the crowd at home against Millwall. We won both games but actually football didn't matter at those two occasions, we all just wanted to say goodbye to Speed.

I hope we won't have to go through something like that ever again, a young man leaving his family and his life is awful, and the worst part is we will never really know how Gary felt when he made his decision.
This was my goodbye to one of my first Leeds heroes: http://kimba1980.blogspot.com/2011/11/goodbye-to-true-leeds-united-legend.html

RIP GARY SPEED

Young player of the year

After spending two seasons away from Leeds on loans Tom Lees finally got his break this season. In an often outstreched and beaten backline he was, in my opinion, the only player who kept a decent level.

Leeds haven't had the best of season in the defensive department and have again let in alot of goals and have had some total black outs, I do however feel that Tom Lees have shown amazing promise and if he gets a more experienced guy next to him I believe he'll go on the achieve big things (I just hope it's in a Leeds shirt).

I had also considered Adam Clayton and Aidy White for the award but I did feel that Lees upheld a higher level throughout the season then the other two, also considering that he was often played out of position on the right back. I hope NW will play him in the central defence next season, the place where Lees is by far at his best.

Tommy, Congrats on being my player of the year, looking forward to seeing you get even better next year!

MOT.

Player of the year 2011/12

So the season is coming to a close and it's time to reflect on what was good and what was, well, not good.

I'll make four blogs over the coming days and in each I'll give an "award" to Player of the year, Young player of the year, Game of the year and Goal of the year.

I'll start out with player of the year, I had three guys in mind, Snoddy, Clayton and Ross McCormack. In the end I decided that my player of the year was Rossy.

The reason to pick him was that I fear where we had been without his many goals, and I also felt that he's been a great performer after a very tough first season at Elland Road. I actually predicted in August that he'd have a great season, so I'm quite pleased to have been right.

Many people feared that Ross would be a massive flop in Leeds and even though I think that many have Snoddy as their player of the year, I stand by Ross. We all knew that Snoddy would be great again this season, but Ross' form has taken alot of us by surprise (a very pleasent one).

So Mr.McCormack, congrats on being my player of the year (and sign that damn contract soon!!).