Leeds Will They Or Won't They?

[ThaiPauly]

Well at least Barnsley lost so the gap is no wider than before.

There is still time...don't get too downhearted yet

Told You So!!....You beat Coventry....thats a start

Edited January 2, 2007 by ThaiPauly

[taxexile]

a good start too , it will put some confidence back.

a long way to go though.

[warriors]

A wee smile is on my face

[Jockstar]

Wise and Leeds choose to go with Flo

Tore Andre Flo has linked up again with former Chelsea team-mates Dennis Wise and Guy Poyet after signing a short-term deal at Leeds.

The 33-year-old striker has moved to Elland Road from Norwegian side Valerenga until the end of the season.

Flo played alongside Wise and Poyet at Chelsea before making a £12.5million to Rangers in July 2001.

His move completes a busy day of trading for the struggling Championship club who have also handed short-term deals to Tresor Kandol - who had been on loan from Barnet - and Espanyol defender Armando Miguel Correia De Sa, subject to international clearance.

[ballzafire]

Will.

[ThaiPauly]

Will.

Will Who???

[warriors]

Maybe his middle name is bill Where there's a will there's a way. Way to go Leeds win again pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Edited January 6, 2007 by warriors

[soihok]

Sheff Utd have signed Leeds Utd defender Kilgallon for 1.75 million quid.

Rob Hulse and Ian Bennet joined the Blades last year ,also from Leeds, so its an all in,house Yorkshire thing.

Rob Hulse is Sheff Utds leading goal scorer for the Blades in the premiership,,,so on behalf of all Sheff U fans I say"Thanks" to Leeds United.

[bendix]

Hulse is a good player, but I don't think he's Premiership quality.

You're welcome to him. We made a badly needed million on the transfer and he scored a few for us, but lost his way in the last few months. I suspect he'll be back in the Championship before long, anyway ;-)

[bendix]

Just read that Leeds have signed Celtic midfielder Alan Thompson until the end of the season. He used to be at Villa, and I recall David O'Leary tried to sign him 6-7 years ago.

[warriors]

2 ---- 3

They lost once again gap is now 6 points and getting wider and wider if they do not beat HULL next game it is all over and a big drop is comming in both supporers and money.

[taxexile]

How can Leeds save themselves?

By Chris Bevan

We need nine wins and every game now is a cup final for us

Leeds United are already occupying the lowest league position in their 88-year history - but how can they stop things from getting any worse?

The beleaguered Elland Road club have won only one of their last 10 matches and are six points adrift of safety at the bottom of the Championship.

With 18 games left, a first-ever relegation to the third tier of English football is looming - and time is running out for Dennis Wise's side to save themselves.

Four new faces have arrived during the January transfer window but results have yet to improve and a difficult trip to fellow strugglers Hull City awaits on Saturday.

The Leeds squad are at a training camp in Cyprus this week and Wise's assistant Gus Poyet tells BBC Sport how they plan to beat the drop.

TEAM BONDING

This camp is to sort things out for the rest of the season. We are getting the players together to concentrate on the task ahead.

We knew we were signing new players - and we knew we needed the new players to get to know the rest of the squad as soon as possible.

This was the last opportunity to get all the lads together and make sure we know what is coming.

WHAT MATTERS NOW

There are three months of the Championship left in which we have to win at least half of our games.

BOTTOM OF THE CHAMPIONSHIP

18th Leicester....P28 Pts 33

19th Hull City......P29 Pts 31

20th Luton Town P29 Pts 31

21st QPR.............P29 Pts 30

22nd Barnsley....P29 Pts 29

23rd Leeds Utd...P28 Pts 24

24th Southend....P29 Pts 24

Every game is a cup final to get those wins - and no other results are any good to us.

From now until the end of the season, let's say there is a table in there from Leicester, who are nine points ahead of us, downwards.

There are teams with points already and we are on zero with Southend. That is a mini-league that we have to win, or at least make sure we are not in the bottom three.

Results matter now more than performances. It is not how we get those wins that matters, just that we get them.

You cannot say that at the beginning of the season when you have got 46 games in front of you but when you reach this stage, with the position we are in, it is definitely not about performances anymore.

To be fair we have played better than before in our last four games but we have only won one of them.

When you play well it should be easier to win games because when you play well you are supposed to be creating chances and in control of the game but it is not working for us.

NO EXCUSES

WISE & POYET AT LEEDS

P16 W4 D2 L10 F21 A29

We knew it would be hard when we came here from Swindon in October.

We knew from the first day the situation with the players and the financial situation. All that was clear so we cannot complain about that.

This club is huge. It is a beautiful club to work at and has so much potential - but for now our only aim is to stay in the Championship.

WISE & POYET AT SWINDON

P16 W8 D5 L3 F22 A14

And I am still confident we can do it. Even if we have lost a few games and we are running out of matches.

That is why we need the points now - and when I say now, I mean the next game, not the following week.

But we have already proved we can score goals so as soon as we put right the small things we doing wrong at the back I am confident we can turn around the results.

STICKING TOGETHER

LEEDS' JANUARY SIGNINGS

Tresor Kandol (£0.2m)

Tore Andre Flo (free)

Robbie Elliott (free)

Miguel Armando Sa (loan)

Alan Thompson (loan)

The supporters have been absolutely magnificent so far. We have had great support considering the position we are in.

The only thing I can say to them is to keep going like that until the end of the season. At the end of the season they can make their opinions known but we need to stick together right now - we really do need all the help we can get until the very last.

The team spirit is better now - it is quite good. We have got better fitness and like I said before we have been playing better.

But all that together is not enough. We need something extra and we have to make sure that comes in the next game.

more meaningless managerspeak from dennis wise.

[JacknDanny]

An article I just read said that Gus Poyet was making a come back................Seriously!!!!!

Holy sh#t, you guys must be suffering

[jezchesters]

An article I just read said that Gus Poyet was making a come back................Seriously!!!!!

Holy sh#t, you guys must be suffering

Yep - apparently he scored with a nice volley in a friendly against a Cypriate side...

[bendix]

There is only one upside to Poyet making a comeback as a player.

It will finally, irrefutably tighten our grip on the label of football's biggest laughing stock.

Edited January 27, 2007 by bendix

[jezchesters]

There is only one upside to Poyet making a comeback as a player.

It will finally, irrefutably tighten our grip on the label of football's biggest laughing stock.

Sadly, we attained that status some time ago

[jezchesters]

Hoorah!!! We won one! And away from home!

Unfortunately, so did Southend and Barnsley

[eddie11]

An away win and we still went bottom

(Brum lost 1-3 to Southend)

[bendix]

Bizarre as it may sound, but if there is a better environment with which to go bottom it was last night. By all accounts, the team played with spirit, passion and determination - a rarity for the last few years. The real positive is that last night's other results really opened things up. Shame that Southend won, but other results brought Luton, QPR and of course Hull right back into the fray.

We're now four points from the safety spot (with a game in hand), and only five points from the team sixth from bottom. It could be a lot worse.

Sounds like great performances from all the new guys, particularly Armando Sa and Alan Thompson. Rui Marques is playing like a new recruit.

Downside is that Flo is likely out for the rest of the season with a broken foot, and Healy has a suspected broken arm. On the plus side, Richard Cresswell is due back in a couple of weeks.

Bring on Norwich at the weekend (who are also looking shaky in recent weeks, and lost to a nine man opposition last night).

[PREM-R]

Will it all depend on the last game of the season?

[bendix]

i hope not, for reasons you obviously know about already!

[jezchesters]

Most reports are saying Flo should be out for 8 weeks...

Blake scored for the reserves...

Sounds like the midfield played spendidly with several players still to come back - defence is still looking frail, although Elliot should be back soon and we'll get Foxe back from suspension at the weekend...

Highlights available here (Free trial for the month of Feb)

Marching on together!

[taxexile]

Talking Football: Wise tackles Leeds plight head on

By Tim Rich

Last Updated: 12:35am GMT 02/02/2007

There are not many men who, having taken Leeds United to the foot of what in Yorkshire they still call the Second Division, would show their face in public, much less pose for photographs. Dennis Wise has been called many things but never a coward.

He is presenting a cheque for £420,000 to the Hunslet Boys and Girls Club on behalf of the Barclays Spaces for Sport scheme. It will pay for an Astroturf pitch, changing facilities and much else beside in an area of Leeds cut off from the glass and steel of the city centre. It is appropriately close to Elland Road and was built in the days of Don Revie, when the club's horizons stretched to European Cup finals rather than a desperate scramble to finish fourth bottom of the game's second tier.

"I learnt my football in places like these," said Wise. "Kicking against a wall or playing for my dad's team, not on Astroturf but on that red, stony gravel, when your knees were full of cuts and grazes, trying to control a football against much bigger people. It toughened me up."

Wise breaks off to talk to a lad who impressed him, discovers he plays for a team called Yorkshire Amateurs, and then moves on. To some older Leeds supporters, it must be difficult to accept being taken to the brink by a chairman, Ken Bates, and a management team of Wise and Gustavo Poyet, who are not just southern but dyed with the blue of Chelsea. They have put themselves in the hands of pagan gods.

advertisement"The Yorkshire public have actually been very good," Wise reflected. "They know it has been difficult but they know, too, that we will give everything."

There has not been time for either he or Poyet to find anywhere permanent to live. Hotel beds do have a pen and a notepad beside them, which Wise has turned to.

After Manchester United's defeat at Arsenal, their manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, complained he was unable to sleep as his mind turned over the final fateful minutes at the Emirates Stadium which cost his side defeat.

"You do get things in your head," Wise said. "I have a pen next to my bed and if a thought won't go away, I'll wake up and write it down. When something's bothering me, I say to myself: 'Come on, relax for an hour or two and the thoughts will come.' "

It is two years since Bates bought Leeds, returning to the north where he first made his money. They had just drawn 1-1 with Cardiff in front of a crowd of almost 30,000 at Elland Road and were 14th in the Championship. For Leeds' last home fixture, a 3-2 defeat by West Bromwich, the gate was just over 20,000 and that is considered reasonable.

The top tier of the East Stand is now closed, saving £200,000. The offices are no longer cleaned every day and orders for fresh flowers have been cancelled, saving £12,000 a year. The rented goldfish, symbols of the Ridsdale years, have long since departed.

In his three months at Leeds, Wise has brought in a raft of loan signings, dismissed Paul Butler as captain, been forced to sell Matthew Kilgallon, perhaps the club's best defender, to Sheffield United. He has attempted to remedy what he saw as a lack of basic fitness and, in Bates' words, broken up a dressing room "cabal" he considered was affecting the club's performances.

"It's not enjoyable but it's necessary," said Wise. "Listen, if your gaffer comes up to you and says your articles have been no good, you will last a certain amount of time and, if you don't respond, you will go. It's simple. But I am worried about Leeds United, not individuals and their feelings."

All this furious activity has not, however, improved the club's position. Leeds were second bottom when he arrived in October and on Tuesday they sank to the foot of the Championship in bizarre circumstances. They had actually beaten Hull when news came through that Southend had scored three times at Birmingham, condemning Leeds to last place on goal difference. David Healy, their outstanding striker, fractured an arm.

"Being last doesn't bother me," said Wise, who has succeeded in far more improbable tasks, winning the FA Cup with Wimbledon and taking Millwall to the final. "We have some very good matches coming up; Queens Park Rangers, Luton, Norwich, Ipswich. If you said we had to play West Brom, Birmingham, Preston and Southampton home and away, it might be quite different. It has crossed my mind that we might not survive but I fully believe we will stay up and, if I didn't, I should go now."

from todays online daily telegraph.

[eddie11]

NORWICH 2 Leeds 1

proper bottom now

[taxexile]

no problem !!

"Being last doesn't bother me," said Wise

[bendix]

A mixed weekend, with a good win soured by the news that a Leeds player leaked the team to the opposition the night before. Frankly, i think too much is being made of it and it sounds more like a casual chat over a beer, rather than any clandestine operation involving brown envelope and secret meetings in the carpark.

Most Leeds fans will know who is involved.

So, we're still bottom but bizarrely we are in a better spot than a few weeks ago with only 2-3 points seperating us from the safety zone.

It's getting tight.

[jezchesters]

A mixed weekend, with a good win soured by the news that a Leeds player leaked the team to the opposition the night before. Frankly, i think too much is being made of it and it sounds more like a casual chat over a beer, rather than any clandestine operation involving brown envelope and secret meetings in the carpark.

Most Leeds fans will know who is involved.

So, we're still bottom but bizarrely we are in a better spot than a few weeks ago with only 2-3 points seperating us from the safety zone.

It's getting tight.

I would hazard a guess at Shaun Derry...

[eddie11]

He should do it every week if it gets us a result

[bendix]

I would hazard a guess at Shaun Derry...

That's where the smart money is . . . .

[bendix]

That's it.

It's over. We're doomed.

One point out of two crunch games away to Cardiff and home to QPR leaves us firmly rooted to the bottom and completely lacking in momentum. Key players either injured or out of form.

Third tier football, here we come.

The only saving grace is that I can imagine Leeds fans being really defiant next year, taking advantage of lower admission prices to bring 30,000 gates to games against Northampton and Bournemouth as the team rebuilds with youth.

Almost 2 thirds of the current squad are either out of contract in June, or coming to end of loan period. My god . . .