Leeds United: A Failed Season?

Tonight’s result summed up a lot about this season for us. There’s a problem with the reaction to it on both ends – it is neither a good result nor a bad one. The reality is that a draw away at Leicester is the norm for Leeds United, and that is what is not good enough.

The reality is Neil Warnock was brought in with a singular task, which was to get us promotion from The Championship back to the Premier League. The Warnockasaurus has prowled the touchline for 18 months now, doling out mid-table results in often unpalatable tablespoons. We’ve started to play a bit better, but the results haven’t improved – since we’ve sold Becchio we’ve picked up 9 points from 18, the very definition of middling.

What do we lack? A goalscorer for one, and we sold him mid-season. That alone isn’t acceptable, you shouldn’t have to replace your top scorer halfway through a season. Morison has not proven himself in that regard. Given their two records, for the run-in Becchio was always going to be the better bet. We were in the stronger position, 18-months left to run on his contract and at a club he clearly loved playing for – we didn’t have any reason to kowtow to player power and sell him.

The play-offs should not have been the aim this season, it should have been carving a path through the league, as it always should be until we get promotion. Sorry to make an obvious point, and one that will surely get me criticism, but we’re Leeds United and we’re the only professional club in the third largest city in the country. We have a global fanbase and traditionally one of the largest followings in the country. We may have fallen but we still deserve better. Until we get a manager who provides us the Premier League, we have every reason to tell them it isn’t good enough.

For that reason, and as things will probably fall from now until May, it has to be looked upon as a failed season thus far.

Follow Amitai Winehouse (@awinehouse1).

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10 thoughts on “Leeds United: A Failed Season?”

  1. Another deluded Leeds fan. Mid table championship side, half full stadium every week, with a manager from the 80’s, and still think theyre Man Utd biggest rival (no I dont follow MUFC). Get over yourself mate. Third biggest city ? Think you need to check your facts. Global fanbase ? Ive heard it all now…. A couple of posts from fans in Singapore does not mean you are Utd/City/Arsenal. Hilarious !!!!

  2. Can GFH get an interim manager in please? This idiot is not going to get us up,besides we don’t deserve it with this team. I’m sick of the lies and sick of the excuses from colin. If everybody CAN beat everybody else in this division,how come we can’t? If GFH want to get fans in,get rid of warnock,jones,bates,harvey and lorimer NOW and stop wasting our time and money with total shit and total bullshit.

  3. Dan, thanks for choosing to read on and comment on our small deluded club. I have no idea which club you support and have zero interest. Unless we are playing you I probably wouldn’t have any real interest in reading up on you either. At knocking on £600 for my season ticket and with the potential to easily get 30k attendances I think us Leeds fans have every right to feel let down. Personally I have no interest in the reds but to suggest they aren’t our rivals indicates you don’t know many of their fans. As with many fans of the angry Yorkshire clubs (Barnsley, Hull, Uddersfax, Sheffield (both)) you mistake on the pitch rivalry generated by a level of playing ability we just don’t have with inter club rivalry. Ask the Mancs who attended ER & chose to make up banners about us if they consider us their ‘rivals’. Again thanks for CHOOSING to take the time to consider our club and make comments, enjoy your life

  4. I’ve enjoyed your blog posts of late but I think this one comes across as being disingenuous and for a number of reasons. The late equaliser was a blow but without it, we would have won and I doubt this blog would have existed. Instead you’re suggesting it’s a negligible result, when 1-1 away at Leicester is quite clearly a very good point.

    Becchio was sold, done, there’s no point debating that. He wanted to go for a better contract and we didn’t want to go beyond what was being offered. We had every reason to let him go – we got a striker with Premiership experience in exchange. It was a pragmatic deal and according to the Scratching Shed poll, Leeds fans were quite happy with that bit of business. He hasn’t quite got going yet, but from what I saw vs Blackpool, Morison looks the part. The fact he hasn’t played in a while is no excuse for the lack of goals, but there are other players on the pitch who could be contributing.

    The play-offs are never the aim at the start of the season, but as the season goes on you change your targets. We are quite clearly behind the top teams in the league and therefore the play-offs are an acceptable target. “Carving a path” through the league is a bit ignorant of the fact that that are 23 other teams in the league who start the season with the same target, that being promotion.

    Finally, your summary is completely irrelevant and invited the likes of ‘dan’ to troll out an opinion – which, unfortunately is valid in some respect. Global fanbase? Yes, we have fans in other countries. One of the largest followings in the country? Yes, at away games. Does that give us the right to ‘deserve better’? No, and why should it? A football club is built on more than just the manager, and as you well know, there are other parts of the club that need sorting more than just replacing the man who coaches the team. Getting fans back to Elland Road with lower ticket prices, resolving the ownership issue, providing the manager with funds…these are all factors too, not just the fact that our current manager hasn’t met the standards he set himself or that the fans expected of him.

    So you’re right, we can tell them it isn’t good enough…but with 8 points out of 12, with only 2 goals conceded…it’s a bit of a poor time to pick that argument.

    That aside, keep up the blogs.

    P.S. Dan, you may be right on the third biggest city ‘misinformation’, but you’re definitely a numpty if you think the world revolves around the two Manchester clubs and Arsenal.

  5. Like everything: It depends how you divvy it up. The metropolitan district includes Leeds and the ten towns of Farsley, Garforth, Guiseley, Horsforth, Morley, Otley, Pudsey, Rothwell, Wetherby and Yeadon and this IS the 3rd biggest in the country. Then again there are so many ways of making up figures and stats to suit all of a sudden reality is distorted. As it clearly is for @Dan. Bless him. Seems like a WUM to me.

    Anyway, ignoring Dan’s crazy self imposed delusion us Leeds fans are certainly taking a whipping from the old Warnockasaurus (like it!) but fortunately extinction looms. The environment for the Warnockasaurus is getting harsher and soon he will be at rest for a long time watching the evolving creatures that can also play football with their feet.

    Nonetheless @Dan is slightly right in the fact that we somehow feel aggrieved at our lack of EPL football. We have no divine right to be there and even if we played lovely pretty football with wonder players that guarantees nothing. A crowd of 30,000+ also guarantees little especially some decree about where a club should be.

    If we were to go up this season? Well it would be embarrassing, we would struggle for players, get the wrong ones and so on. IT would be a disaster as we would have to have a new manager.

    So what do I hope for as a Leeds fan? Get blooding some of those younger players for Gods sakes. We have better midfielders and strikers in the youth squad than out there in the dreaded loan market. Play them. PLay them all. Play Habibou, play Mowatt, etc. Apart from that – someone to own the club who actually speaks to the loyal and paying fans.

    I hope we get a decent manager that has a year with his team & youth team before the trial of the EPL comes up. I don’t want promotion this year as I don’t think it would do us any good at all quite frankly. Bummer eh?

  6. I wish people would shut up about Becchio. Has nobody noticed that all this was going on before he left?! We haven’t lost every game since he went and i’m sure that he would have struggled against the likes of Shittu on Saturday.

  7. The fact is Bates wanted a manager who could bring in players on a shoe string. Warnock is in the Wenger category of wanting to prove people wrong and create a title winning team while maintaining doing this on a significantly smaller budget than their rivals. As with Wenger early 2000 era, it worked very well winning titles and having unbeaten seasons. The past 5-6 years though he has had numerous players ie Nasri/Clichy who got fed up of no investment and didnt see an improvement plus got offered significantly more cash. Warnock has done the same with Sheff utd and QPR, sometimes you will get a team who click together and you get the instant results or over time. On this occasion it hasnt worked, but realistically in 18months it would be a challenge for any manager. But then theres the “well Norwich(Leeds mark 2) and Southampton did it alas slightly bigger budget, but achieved back to back promotions. It’s as simple as it either works or it doesnt, and on this occasion it didnt, but i would thank Warnock for his patience and sticking by it for trying. I would say whoever is next has to be mental for trying it but hope they have been ear marked already giving them chance to pick out the weaknesses etc. Either way its going to be the same game same story Manager comes in, buys a few players, gets promotion or doesnt. The only difference is he is managing team who’s fans demand instant results including myself, and expectations are high and for the right reasons, it has been too long. As long as it has backers when it does come to the premiership then happy days, lets just hope it happens soon.

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