The state of Leeds United

Leeds United Life is a weblog dedicated to daily comment on events at Leeds United. The site's author has put together a well written 3 part series detailing the state of Leeds, my thanks to LUAFC Life for preparing this. -FC

With the new Championship season starting this weekend, here is an extract from a 3-part article on the state of Leeds United as published on the blog, Leeds United Life. The links within the extract will take the reader to each of the parts.

Our [Leeds] club seems to have survived the dramatic stomach-churning fall of Theme Park ride proportions and, thankfully, is going through a period of off the field stability unheard of for over three years.

Ken Bates, the new owner, is making changes and has control of the money, though he says the club will lose £6m this season. He has upset some fans, in typical blunt style, over ticketing arrangements. However, Bates has delivered nearly £3m of cash for new players.

After the PLC disaster, the fans trust of management remains low and continues to fuel various online conspiratorial rumours that the club is still being ripped off and damaged. [Read more here]

Last season, our standard of football was woeful! Blackwell was involved in over 64 separate player transactions; surely a record for any club. Results were always going to be more important than performances with such a turnover of staff.

We feared going into administration and receiving a 10-point deduction and thoughts turned to relegation as we fell down to 19th place in December. Then, after Bates surprisingly took charge, by the end of February, the fans seriously entertained the notion of the play-offs; such was the tightness of the division.

We finished 14th a mere ten points above relegation, and therefore were thankful to Bates that we avoided the ten point deduction and a possible relegation.

This season the squad is perhaps one of the strongest in the division. All positions have cover and so injuries shouldn’t be a problem or an excuse. Optimism has returned to some parts of Elland Road [Read more here].

This season will be Blackwell’s chance to prove he is more than a highly certified coach. However, many fans have doubts about his abilities, but when have football supporters ever been fair and given a manager time? [Read more here].

Written by LUAFC Life of Leeds United Life for Football Commentator. No part maybe reproduced without the express permission of the author. The opinions are those of the author.