Bielsasbucket
New Member
- Joined
- 17 Apr 2011
- Messages
- 4
Was in dirty Leeds this weekend with the future ex Mrs Lee sat in Ginos quaffing a rather nice bottle of red and got talking to a dirty leeds fan from Doncaster he was telling me how Bielsa was so amazing for getting dirty leeds into the Prem by spending next to nowt, he was quite flummoxed when I mentioned 'apart from the £100 million'
We didn't spend 100m getting to the Prem. Helder Costa 16m, Bamford 7m and Barry Douglas 3m. The rest were loans Harrison and White. We spent 87m last season, Rodrigo 27m, Llorente 18m, Raphinha 17m, Koch 11m, Meslier 6m and the rest on the u23's.
The man is a genius tho there's no doubt about it, the season before he arrived we finished 14th and we were basically shite. After only three months of his arrival during that pre season he turned players that most of us had wrote off and nothing more that average championship players into players that were now unrecognizable from only a few months before. Phillips, Ayling, Dallas, Klich and Bamford to name a few.
The make up of our starting 11 last season was basically the team he inherited. Ayling, Cooper, Strujik, Alioski, Dallas, Kilich, Phillips, Roberts and Bamford. We also lost Ben White back to Brighton who was immense for us in the promotion season and then both our new center back signings Llorente and Koch were missing for most of the first 20 games of the season. Rodrigo was out for 3 months too and only started to show what he could do for the last 5 or 6 games. Raphinha on the other hand was an absolute master stroke of a signing and for only 17m!
We were leaky at the back for sure the first half of the season but we didn't have settled back 4, Ayling filled in at centre half for 12 games during that time. Once Llorente came in after xmas we were much more solid and got stronger as the season went on. We were actually top of the form table for the last 10 games.
Anyway no hatred here towards you lot, I've always seen similarities between our two clubs and we also have the shared hatred of that red shite. I know we not liked very much but I wouldn't change that for the world. I see a few have mentioned it comes from trips to Elland Rd in the 70's and 80's..I'd just like to point out that it wasn't exactly a pleasant stroll to Maine Rd during that time either!
As much as Bielsa is a genius I think that breaking into the top 4 is probably a bit early for us, I'd happily take another season or two like last and just keep building. So with that said Id much sooner you lot win it than Chelsea, Liverpool or scum.
Do you think the Kane move will happen by the way? 160m the mentioned fee isn't it? Personally think that Haaland would suit you guys better.