Diouf looks like sacrificial lamb to help fund new purchases - Hay
YEP 17/8/13
by Phil Hay
Every squad in England contains players of differing value. The problem for managers is that the players they want to sell are not often the players who other coaches want to buy. It’s common sense when you think about it; a simple case of supply and demand.
You can see it in action at Elland Road. Danny Pugh, United’s most spare midfielder, has been on the transfer list for over a year without attracting more than the offer of a loan to Sheffield Wednesday. Ross McCormack, one of the focal points of the squad at Leeds, has drawn three bids in the past month, all of them rejected. Brian McDermott needs to deal but he is answering the phone to people he would rather not speak to.
McCormack’s situation is confusing. He is not for sale, says United’s manager, but Middlesbrough have made two offers and are likely to return with a third. There is confusion in the boardroom at The Riverside since, for all that McDermott has been categorical in declaring McCormack off-limits, Boro believed from the outset that Leeds were willing to talk. The rejection of bids of £1million and £1.3million said otherwise and McCormack, it seems, will stay. That too is common sense.
With McCormack, we are not talking about money alone, despite that realisation that a fee of £1.3million is a meagre sum with which to replace him. Timing is a consideration too. The transfer window closes in two weeks’ time and scrambling to replace one of your livewires is a dangerous game so late in the day. McCormack earns well but good players earn well. And then there is history – the rhetorical question of when selling their better players did anything for Leeds United. The strategy has been tried, tested and thoroughly debunked.
So where McCormack is concerned, the logic of using him to raise cash is flawed. But raise cash and reduce the wage bill is precisely what Leeds need to do in order to ensure that the summer transfer window does not shut with McDermott’s signings stuck on three. A compromise of sorts is needed and his name appears to be El-Hadji Diouf.
From listening to McDermott you don’t get the impression that he has any problem with Diouf’s attitude or doubts about Diouf’s ability. In an ideal world, it is likely that McDermott would choose to keep him as a wild-card and an insurance policy for the days and weeks when inspiration is lacking. But the situation at Elland Road is not ideal and McDermott faces a dilemma – either carrying on offering out the usual suspects or think more deeply about which players he can truly afford to lose.
Diouf’s position has been weakened somewhat by the injury which prevented him from playing in a single pre-season friendly. McDermott said in May that he expected Diouf to return from a holiday in Senegal “the fittest he’s been in his life” but Diouf returned with an infected shin and was idle for weeks. Like Sam Byram, Leeds realised a while ago that their plans for the initial stages of this season should be drawn up without him. A 32-year-old in that boat can quickly become prone to the pressure of a large wage bill.
United will miss Diouf if he goes – his touch, his calmness in possession when all around him is mayhem, those little pieces of brilliance – but not to the extent that they would miss McCormack or the other pillars in McDermott’s line-up. That is no slight on the Senegalese forward, who both McDermott and Neil Warnock speak of in glowing terms. It is a matter of degrees; who is expendable, who is not and what is the most viable means of saving money without damaging the squad excessively.
McDermott’s only option is to attack the positions which are overloaded. Central midfielders are everywhere at Thorp Arch and left-backs seem plentiful too. Leeds are crying out for a central defender and out-and-out wingers, neither of which Diouf would class himself as. Certain players have higher valuations but it would hardly figure if McDermott compounded concerns about weaknesses in his squad by flogging the cream of his crop. Some he cannot do without.
One question more than any other has bounced around these past 48 hours – why don’t Leeds retain Diouf and sell their dead wood? To flip that on its head, which manager in a year when Financial Fair Play is taking hold would be interested in buying dead wood? If a player constitutes dead wood at Leeds then he is likely to constitute dead wood at any other club who can afford his wage. Diouf on the other hand is tempting. Diouf is sellable. And someone has to be.
by Phil Hay
Every squad in England contains players of differing value. The problem for managers is that the players they want to sell are not often the players who other coaches want to buy. It’s common sense when you think about it; a simple case of supply and demand.
You can see it in action at Elland Road. Danny Pugh, United’s most spare midfielder, has been on the transfer list for over a year without attracting more than the offer of a loan to Sheffield Wednesday. Ross McCormack, one of the focal points of the squad at Leeds, has drawn three bids in the past month, all of them rejected. Brian McDermott needs to deal but he is answering the phone to people he would rather not speak to.
McCormack’s situation is confusing. He is not for sale, says United’s manager, but Middlesbrough have made two offers and are likely to return with a third. There is confusion in the boardroom at The Riverside since, for all that McDermott has been categorical in declaring McCormack off-limits, Boro believed from the outset that Leeds were willing to talk. The rejection of bids of £1million and £1.3million said otherwise and McCormack, it seems, will stay. That too is common sense.
With McCormack, we are not talking about money alone, despite that realisation that a fee of £1.3million is a meagre sum with which to replace him. Timing is a consideration too. The transfer window closes in two weeks’ time and scrambling to replace one of your livewires is a dangerous game so late in the day. McCormack earns well but good players earn well. And then there is history – the rhetorical question of when selling their better players did anything for Leeds United. The strategy has been tried, tested and thoroughly debunked.
So where McCormack is concerned, the logic of using him to raise cash is flawed. But raise cash and reduce the wage bill is precisely what Leeds need to do in order to ensure that the summer transfer window does not shut with McDermott’s signings stuck on three. A compromise of sorts is needed and his name appears to be El-Hadji Diouf.
From listening to McDermott you don’t get the impression that he has any problem with Diouf’s attitude or doubts about Diouf’s ability. In an ideal world, it is likely that McDermott would choose to keep him as a wild-card and an insurance policy for the days and weeks when inspiration is lacking. But the situation at Elland Road is not ideal and McDermott faces a dilemma – either carrying on offering out the usual suspects or think more deeply about which players he can truly afford to lose.
Diouf’s position has been weakened somewhat by the injury which prevented him from playing in a single pre-season friendly. McDermott said in May that he expected Diouf to return from a holiday in Senegal “the fittest he’s been in his life” but Diouf returned with an infected shin and was idle for weeks. Like Sam Byram, Leeds realised a while ago that their plans for the initial stages of this season should be drawn up without him. A 32-year-old in that boat can quickly become prone to the pressure of a large wage bill.
United will miss Diouf if he goes – his touch, his calmness in possession when all around him is mayhem, those little pieces of brilliance – but not to the extent that they would miss McCormack or the other pillars in McDermott’s line-up. That is no slight on the Senegalese forward, who both McDermott and Neil Warnock speak of in glowing terms. It is a matter of degrees; who is expendable, who is not and what is the most viable means of saving money without damaging the squad excessively.
McDermott’s only option is to attack the positions which are overloaded. Central midfielders are everywhere at Thorp Arch and left-backs seem plentiful too. Leeds are crying out for a central defender and out-and-out wingers, neither of which Diouf would class himself as. Certain players have higher valuations but it would hardly figure if McDermott compounded concerns about weaknesses in his squad by flogging the cream of his crop. Some he cannot do without.
One question more than any other has bounced around these past 48 hours – why don’t Leeds retain Diouf and sell their dead wood? To flip that on its head, which manager in a year when Financial Fair Play is taking hold would be interested in buying dead wood? If a player constitutes dead wood at Leeds then he is likely to constitute dead wood at any other club who can afford his wage. Diouf on the other hand is tempting. Diouf is sellable. And someone has to be.
