TEAM PREVIEW: Leeds United – Jon Newsome hopes for better times at Elland Road

 

There’s no such thing as a quiet season at Elland Road. Massimo Cellino spent plenty of money but was banned from running the club, before seemingly certain players refused to play for the club towards the end of the season. Neil Redfearn was given the boot in favour of Uwe Rosler, who is sure to bring some calm to proceedings in West Yorkshire…

Last Season: Championship (15th)

Manager: Uwe Rosler

 

Squad

GKs: Marco Silvestri, Charlie Horton, Ross Turnbull
DFs: Sam Byram, Giuseppe Belluschi, Gaetano Berardi, Scott Wootton, Charlie Taylor, Ross Killock, Liam Cooper, Lewis Coyle, Sol Bamba
MFs: Luke Murphy, Tommaso Bianchi, Lewis Cook, Chris Dawson, Alex Mowatt, Casper Sloth, Alex Purver, Kalvin Phillips, Tom Adeyemi
FWs: Billy Sharp, Nicky Ajose, Steve Morison, Lewis Walters, Souleymane Doukara, Mirco Antenucci, Luke Parkin, Lee Erwin, Chris Wood

 

Transfers

In: Charlie Horton (Cardiff City), Lee Erwin (Motherwell), Sol Bamba (Palermo), Chris Wood (Leicester City), Tom Adeyemi (Cardiff City – Loan), Ross Turnbull (Barnsley)

Out: Isaac Assenso (Scunthorpe United), Rodolph Austin (Released), Alex Cairns (Released), Stuart Taylor (Released), Zac Thompson (Released), Michael Tonge (Released), Aidy White (Rotherham United)

 

First Six: Burnley (H), Reading (A), Bristol City (A), Sheffield Wednesday (H), Derby County (A), Brentford (H)

Likely Lineup: (4-3-3) Silvestri – Berardi, Belluschi, Bamba, Taylor – Mowatt, Cook, Adeyemi – Byram, Wood, Erwin

 

 

A word from…Jon Newsome

On winning the league Euphoric in terms of the realisation of what we’d done after we’d won it, but there was a belief and a determination among us. It was a great set of players and I think a lot of them get undervalued for what they achieved that season.

On what went wrong after If you could put your finger on what went wrong after we would have done. People have different opinions on why it happened, some people said the back pass rule coming in was a part of it but I don’t think it was really. Maybe a lack of belief that we could continue, some things change at the club, it was a difficult season, I don’t think we won a game from home.

I suppose it was just a hangover from the year before and we didn’t get going. I think players moving on can have an effect but there was a lot of talk about how Eric (Cantona) won the league but that’s a massive disservice to the players who played the majority of the games.

I don’t include myself in that, I played the last few games but the likes of Strachan, Speed, Batty, McAllister, Fairclough, Lukic etc played over 40 games that season so for people to turn around and say Eric won the league is very harsh on those guys.

But you are going to miss them, good players leave your football club, he’d had a few run-ins with Howard Wilkinson and Howard wasn’t the kind of man to put up with it and the rest has been well written about.

On Howard Wilkinson One of the more outstanding things for me was that he never seemed to actually put pressure on the players, there was never a need to win, it was a lot about the mental side of the game.

He’d just become quite keen on golf and playing golf, there were a lot of similes about golf. Telling us about a golfer not choosing what he’s going to do on the 18th hole, he already knows. Go out there and don’t question yourself, do what you’ve done all season.

There was always a lot of pressure to go out and perform and to win the title but he did his best to relieve the team of that, which was crucial for us.

On the current chaos I think unfortunately it’s a product of the Premier League being such a worldwide brand and something which everyone from the four corners of the world wants to be a part of.

You’re going to attract people who aren’t necessarily the best people to run your football club and they’re not the best people. Football’s not like any other business, you can’t run a football club like you can run any other business in the world.

Unless you’ve got a football person with a football mentality in charge it doesn’t make sense. But you do attract non-football people who think they will come in and know better because they’re successful, because they’ve been successful outside of football. But they don’t make correct football decisions, it’s happened at Leeds and it’s happened at other football clubs.

Leeds can become a bit of a punch bag at times, but they’ve brought their own downfall on themselves sometimes with what’s gone on. It’s a massive club in a one club city so they’re going to take some stick when they’re languishing in the Championship. You’ve only got to go over the hill to Manchester where they’ve got clubs who are far superior to Leeds right now so it’s easy to throw things you.

On Uwe Rosler I don’t know him, I played against him a couple of times, he did great at Brentford and then he went on to Wigan where he had a tougher time. You can only work with the players you’ve got, I think he’ll try and do things right, right in our eyes but will it be right in the chairman’s eyes?

Neil Redfearn did things right in our eyes and in my eyes but obviously not in (Massimo) Cellino’s eyes. And that’s what I’m talking about, non-football people don’t understand the game. I played football for a long time and you never stop learning, so how some businessman can come into football and start making football decisions, they’re bound to get some wrong.

Many years ago I bumped into an old chairman at Sheffield Wednesday who had just resigned. He was very successful and he said to me, ‘it just doesn’t make sense, football doesn’t make any sense’. He put it in a nutshell, it’s a bizarre game and you need people who understand it.

But how do you get out of it? People can come in with money but they call the shots, do you invest in the youth policy? I think you’ve got to do a little bit of everything and get a good manager in like Bournemouth did last season. It always takes a little bit of luck too.

On learning from mistakes Hopefully he (Cellino) is learning from his. He’s come in and taken control, he’s come from Italy but clubs in Italy are run massively different to ones in the UK. We’re seeing similar at Sheffield Wednesday now, they’re putting together a committee who buy the players and a first team coach rather than a manager. If it works, great, but it doesn’t seem to work in England at the moment.

These people are successful in other areas, they’re used to calling the shots, having people around them who listen to their information but going out and spending a fortune in football doesn’t mean you’ll have a good team, it doesn’t mean they’re going to gel. You’ll have fractions in the club, players who aren’t happy, it’s a multitude of issues that can make it go wrong.

If a transfer committee get it wrong and bring players in it won’t be them who lose their jobs, it’ll be their manager. I’m not sure it’s a model that many in this country would want to work under. If any owner decides to spent x amount of money on a player who doesn’t fit in your team, what do you do as a manager if you don’t fancy? He’ll be on a big fat contract and you’ve now got to incorporate a player into your team who you might not rate as highly as someone else, there are massive issues throughout a football club like that.

 

The Offside Rule Podcast Prediction: As long as things remain fairly stable at Elland Road this season, Leeds have got a good chance. It’s amazing a team of that standard has spent years failing to challenge for promotion but Uwe Rosler is a good manager and on paper Leeds have a good squad. This year could be their year.

Key Player: Alex Mowatt – One of several youngsters who broke into the first team regularly last season and was a breath of fresh air. Along with Lewis Cook, the two young Englishmen had big impacts and Mowatt particularly makes things tick.

One to Watch: Charlie Taylor – By hook or by crook, Taylor appears to have now made the left-back spot at Elland Road his own. He showed plenty of talent at times last season and could be another academy product to shine this season.