Your Leeds United views: Premier League will elude Whites until they spend big

Do Leeds United need to start punching their weight financially in the Championship? Just one of many isues being debated by the Elland Road faithful.
Kalvin Phillips and Wigan Athletic's Nick Powell battle for the ball. PIC: PAKalvin Phillips and Wigan Athletic's Nick Powell battle for the ball. PIC: PA
Kalvin Phillips and Wigan Athletic's Nick Powell battle for the ball. PIC: PA

sja, via website

Until Leeds United start punching their weight financially in this league – and they haven’t done that since relegation from the Prem’ – I don’t think they’ll ever be any better than top 10, with vague hopes of the play-offs.

More so with the money-bags clubs they are increasingly competing with – eg Newcastle, Villa, etc – I’m afraid the best we can expect from our owner is a ‘sell-to-buy’ approach and that’s not going to propel us out of this league.

Kalvin Phillips and Wigan Athletic's Nick Powell battle for the ball. PIC: PAKalvin Phillips and Wigan Athletic's Nick Powell battle for the ball. PIC: PA
Kalvin Phillips and Wigan Athletic's Nick Powell battle for the ball. PIC: PA
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I like (head coach) Garry Monk, but he needs time and I’m afraid he just doesn’t have the depth of quality required in the squad.

Also, how many loan players do we have? Two centre-backs, a winger, a number 10, it’s getting on for half of the team.

You do get the impression with Leeds that they are unable to properly impose themselves on teams and, even when they do, we are never going to score more than one or two goals.

That’s not enough to put games to bed.

Kalvin Phillips and Wigan Athletic's Nick Powell battle for the ball. PIC: PAKalvin Phillips and Wigan Athletic's Nick Powell battle for the ball. PIC: PA
Kalvin Phillips and Wigan Athletic's Nick Powell battle for the ball. PIC: PA

I fear another frustrating season and, if (owner/president) Massimo Cellino sticks by his slightly ludicrous ‘play-offs or bust’ demand we could be looking at yet another new manager come next year.

Raising Roofe at Elland Road

HG Leeds Fan, via website

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I was at the match last night and, during the warm-up, Kemar Roofe was smashing goals in to the top corner for fun.

He looked by far the cleanest striker of the ball. Chris Wood and Roofe had a bit of trickery between them too.

Roofe and Wood had swapped places temporarily, as they did on a couple of occasions. I think as they went to swap back it allowed Roofe to break free once or twice.

I’m not sure if this is in the game plan but it was certainly effective when it happened.

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I’m not sure that Roofe’s best position is out wide. I think he is a front man. Wood was excellent on Tuesday. If only we could see this every week.

Hadi Sako was unpredictable, which created opportunities, but he needs to stop kicking the ball too far in front of himself as he runs or takes his first touch. There’s no real issue with the defence; they were all solid and Charlie

Taylor provided some good forward runs.

I don’t agree with people saying he doesn’t want to be there.

Pablo Hernandez’s substitution was an odd one. A calm, mature head in that situation was required. For the last 10 minutes we just kept hoofing the ball back to them.

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We needed someone with the maturity to understand that we needed to get hold of the ball and relieve some of the pressure.

All in all, some glimpses of brilliance by Leeds, which I didn’t see at all from Wigan.

It’s just a shame it didn’t happen often enough in the final third.

I said yesterday that Leeds need to get some breathing space in some games by getting a two-goal margin.

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We just didn’t look like being able to do that and I get the feeling the substitutions told the players that Garry Monk wants to grind out the 1-0.

It back-fired, especially as they threw caution to the wind in the last 10 minutes.