U23 Final 12:30pm

It’s great to win something and a good youth set up is of great importance to a club so all power to them. Thing to remember is the u 23s is not about winning, it’s about preparing players for the step up. But if you Can do both, that’s great.

Corberan has done a really good job, and as i’ve slagged him off in the past, orta has obviously picked some useful talent (albeit an expensive strategy and a bit hit and miss).

As for prioritising, we’d all want a successful first team as the priority, success there helps, from both a financial and player attractiveness perspective, to improve youth set up.

However any one wants to paint it, failure to invest in January and entering the second half of the season with a weaker squad than we started the season with was a disaster that has come home to roost. The lottery of the playoffs may be the get out of jail free card for Radz, but he clearly doesn’t have a pot to pizz in, so it’s inderstandable that some look back on where money has gone and whether the priorities were right.

We've been Great this season and I think we’re unlucky we didn’t make autos, so i’m Not looking to mud sling, just frustrated that we didn’t beg borrow or steal in January to have a clear recruitment plan and budget... that didn’t leave us open to get shafted on the last day of the window.

Let’s win these damn play offs so none of it matters.

Always easy to have all the answers afterwards.

Very simplistic, to compare league position halfway through a season when he wasn’t in management control to the end of the season now.

Valid comparisons:
1) ownership of ground,
2) football played, entertainment provided,
3) player management in place now,
4) first time in many years with a chance to compete for a place in the Prem League,
5) home attendance,
6) revenue,
7) increase in club visibility in the city, opening of the club store in the city centre,
8) Bremner Square improvement.

Others can add, I’m sure.

Life just isn’t perfect and everything doesn’t go to plan as we would like...

Sometimes.

What’s the real point of whinging about the negatives anyway?

https://tbrfootball.com/photos-radrizzani-and-bielsas-incredible-leeds-united-impact-highlighted-by-these-images/

Jonny, every man and his dog is comparing last half of this season to first half of this season, these sorts fo comparison's happens all the time. The simple fact is we were 4th wen AR came in, we're now 3rd, people conveniently forget that he took us backwards completely in terms of league position and a series of managerial changes.

We were led to believe that buying ground back freed us from rent payments, it does not and this ewill kick in again soon.

Revenue, yes it went up form 34 mill to 40 mill, some 20% increase. Admin costs went up from 37 to 53 mill, around a 40% increase and thats after 18 mill of player sales, we have no such player sales this season.

I'm not sure how this is something to congratulate our owners for.

No one was trying to whinge about anything, just pointing out that we've not come as far as people are making out.

The football has been great at times, but also crap at times as we've just completely thrown away points.

Bielsa is the one bright spark, along with, Philips, Clarke and BPF, all homegrown players.

Norwich and Sheff U have shown how to make huge progress in a season or 2 and make it without breaking the bank on players that never get anywhere near making first team contribution.

I can cite plenty of positives, as I have all season, but that shouldn't mean that we ignore reality and that is that we have a very poor transfer policy that has seen our costs far far outstrip our revenue and almost everyone agrees that we need to spend to make the most of Bielsa next year.

Something MUST change in this model.

Jonty, you make some good points.

But it takes from your point to start off saying we were 4th when Radrizanni came in. So what? We finished that season 7th and he had no bearing over the results that tailed off towards the end of it.

How can you say an owner had no bearing on results?

We hear a lot how behind the scenes stuff does not affect on pitch yet we see it all the time.

Monk clearly did not want to stay, AR clearly didnt really want him, suddenly result completely tail off.

Owners and AR is no exception seem to be excused left right and centre until it’s too late.

I pray we go up this season as I’m genuinely concerned what our financial state is going to do to us next season if we don’t.

The U23s have done excellent work and achieved the results accordingly.

But having said that, true measure of success is the position in the senior leagues of which we have failed for far too long.

I do worry if we are still in this league next season how we will progress.

Rev, exactly. What’s even more important re U23s is how there is much more unity, feels like a parts feel part of a whole and you see these players given exposure to first team it’s exactly how the progression should work.

comment by Jonty (U4614)
posted 1 hour, 34 minutes ago
Rev, exactly. What’s even more important re U23s is how there is much more unity, feels like a parts feel part of a whole and you see these players given exposure to first team it’s exactly how the progression should work.
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And it's exactly this kind of progression that is gonna pay dividends in the future.

Maybe not this season, or next season, but soon.

This is long term planning that will not only get us back into the Premier League, but make sure we can stay there for years to come.

I think when AR came in Cellino was in charge, AR took 50% off the club and Cellino took a back seat!..

AR wanted Cellino's backing in the January window but Cellino said that's not the way to do it!..

I wonder what might have happened if Cellino had played along, I mean, we didn't end the season that far of the Play Offs!..

50/50 backing and Cellino just might have got his bonus!..