Blackburn is warning why Leeds must have patience
Yorkshire Post 12/10/12
By Richard Sutcliffe
“ONLY one?” chuckled Neil Warnock when asked a few days ago by this newspaper if there had been a point where he had seriously considered walking away from Leeds United.
“If I’m being honest, there have been three or four times when I’ve said to myself, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ But then I’ve calmed down and just got on with it.”
Such a level-headed approach is why the Yorkshire club are handily-placed in the Championship despite a turbulent few months that have tried the patience of everyone at Elland Road.
The protracted takeover saga has dominated the Leeds news agenda for so long now that it is hard to remember a time when the first question on the lips of supporters wasn’t, ‘So, is it done yet?’
Managing amid such uncertainty is not easy with transfer targets having to be continually reassessed and finances juggled.
But, thanks to a bulging contacts book and negotiating skills honed in almost 30 years as a manager, Warnock has built a squad that may be short on numbers but is undoubtedly big on heart.
It is also one that boasts sufficient match-winners at both ends of the field to be a real threat.
To push on, however, Warnock does need financial help. The opening couple of months have already shown just how susceptible to injury that Leeds are with the loss of three players in David Norris, Paul Green and Ross McCormack in quick succession last month having left the squad looking dangerously thin.
Of course, the £52m question facing Leeds right now is whether this help will be forthcoming in the guise of the much-touted takeover.
Recent signs have been encouraging but, judging by the statements that have come out of both sides in the past week, there is still plenty of work to do.
Understandably, supporters are becoming frustrated.
Much of their ire has been directed at chairman Ken Bates, who responded last weekend by saying any delay of late was down to the lawyers acting on behalf of prospective buyers, GFH Capital. They, in turn, made it clear how committed the firm was to completing a deal.
Whether that was in the next week, month or year was not, though, made clear. Nor was the cause of the hold-up.
What is perhaps being lost, however, amid the current frustration is just how vital it is that the next step is the right one. United have simply come too far to throw it all away now.
Anyone questioning this should think back to the very start of 2005. Leeds United were a busted flush, unable to prevent themselves careering from one calamity to another. At one stage, things became so bad that captain Paul Butler even advocated Leeds being put in administration immediately so that the players would know “exactly how many wins we need to stay up” once the 10-point deduction he saw as inevitable had been implemented.
I was in the tunnel at Elland Road when Butler made his impassioned plea in the wake of a 1-1 draw with Cardiff City. That any United captain could make such a suggestion for the apparent good of the club showed just how far things had fallen.
Leeds’s league position today may only be a few places higher than the 14th place they occupied when Butler made his dramatic plea to Gerald Krasner’s board. But in every other sense, things have changed.
This much is apparent by at least three parties having made serious efforts to get involved at Leeds in the past eight months. In 2005, only Bates was willing to take the plunge at a time when even the sale of Elland Road and Thorp Arch just a month or so earlier had been unable to prevent Scott Carson having to be sold to pay the December wage bill.
The journey from then to now has been an often testing one with relegation and administration being just two of the body blows to befall the club. But the club is now in a position where a little investment could go a long way.
Get it wrong now, however, and all that blood, sweat and tears will have been for nothing. Just look at Blackburn Rovers, where, in the 18 months that have followed the takeover by the Venky’s, this previously well-run club has been transformed into a laughing stock.
English football is littered with similar instances of takeovers going wrong and that is why, no matter how frustrating the current impasse may be, the long-term good of Leeds United is what matters.
And providing that patience is eventually rewarded by a deal going through that brings the necessary funds into the Elland Road coffers in time to make United a big player in the January transfer window, Warnock’s decision to stick with Leeds when even he had doubts could yet be rewarded by that record-breaking eighth career promotion he so badly craves.
By Richard Sutcliffe
“ONLY one?” chuckled Neil Warnock when asked a few days ago by this newspaper if there had been a point where he had seriously considered walking away from Leeds United.
“If I’m being honest, there have been three or four times when I’ve said to myself, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ But then I’ve calmed down and just got on with it.”
Such a level-headed approach is why the Yorkshire club are handily-placed in the Championship despite a turbulent few months that have tried the patience of everyone at Elland Road.
The protracted takeover saga has dominated the Leeds news agenda for so long now that it is hard to remember a time when the first question on the lips of supporters wasn’t, ‘So, is it done yet?’
Managing amid such uncertainty is not easy with transfer targets having to be continually reassessed and finances juggled.
But, thanks to a bulging contacts book and negotiating skills honed in almost 30 years as a manager, Warnock has built a squad that may be short on numbers but is undoubtedly big on heart.
It is also one that boasts sufficient match-winners at both ends of the field to be a real threat.
To push on, however, Warnock does need financial help. The opening couple of months have already shown just how susceptible to injury that Leeds are with the loss of three players in David Norris, Paul Green and Ross McCormack in quick succession last month having left the squad looking dangerously thin.
Of course, the £52m question facing Leeds right now is whether this help will be forthcoming in the guise of the much-touted takeover.
Recent signs have been encouraging but, judging by the statements that have come out of both sides in the past week, there is still plenty of work to do.
Understandably, supporters are becoming frustrated.
Much of their ire has been directed at chairman Ken Bates, who responded last weekend by saying any delay of late was down to the lawyers acting on behalf of prospective buyers, GFH Capital. They, in turn, made it clear how committed the firm was to completing a deal.
Whether that was in the next week, month or year was not, though, made clear. Nor was the cause of the hold-up.
What is perhaps being lost, however, amid the current frustration is just how vital it is that the next step is the right one. United have simply come too far to throw it all away now.
Anyone questioning this should think back to the very start of 2005. Leeds United were a busted flush, unable to prevent themselves careering from one calamity to another. At one stage, things became so bad that captain Paul Butler even advocated Leeds being put in administration immediately so that the players would know “exactly how many wins we need to stay up” once the 10-point deduction he saw as inevitable had been implemented.
I was in the tunnel at Elland Road when Butler made his impassioned plea in the wake of a 1-1 draw with Cardiff City. That any United captain could make such a suggestion for the apparent good of the club showed just how far things had fallen.
Leeds’s league position today may only be a few places higher than the 14th place they occupied when Butler made his dramatic plea to Gerald Krasner’s board. But in every other sense, things have changed.
This much is apparent by at least three parties having made serious efforts to get involved at Leeds in the past eight months. In 2005, only Bates was willing to take the plunge at a time when even the sale of Elland Road and Thorp Arch just a month or so earlier had been unable to prevent Scott Carson having to be sold to pay the December wage bill.
The journey from then to now has been an often testing one with relegation and administration being just two of the body blows to befall the club. But the club is now in a position where a little investment could go a long way.
Get it wrong now, however, and all that blood, sweat and tears will have been for nothing. Just look at Blackburn Rovers, where, in the 18 months that have followed the takeover by the Venky’s, this previously well-run club has been transformed into a laughing stock.
English football is littered with similar instances of takeovers going wrong and that is why, no matter how frustrating the current impasse may be, the long-term good of Leeds United is what matters.
And providing that patience is eventually rewarded by a deal going through that brings the necessary funds into the Elland Road coffers in time to make United a big player in the January transfer window, Warnock’s decision to stick with Leeds when even he had doubts could yet be rewarded by that record-breaking eighth career promotion he so badly craves.