[Albion] Deluded Leeds (an EFL club) fans

[vagabond]

Do Guardiola and Pochettino talk about the influence Chris Hughton has had on their football philosophy?

Does the world's (formerly?) greatest player ask for Chris Hughton to be head hunted to manage Barca?

Serious questions? What's the answer old son? Would that be a no?

Aha, but Guardiola was singing the praises of Graham Potter only a few weeks ago. “The best English coach he has met”. Check mate:

https://www.brightonandhoveindepend...otter-best-english-manager-i-have-met-2911274

 

[peterward]

It is [/B
He plays football as it should be played. It is a thing of beauty to behold. You are all football fans yourselves, I am surprised our great affection for him and for that should surprise and even perhaps repel you? Does it? And if so why?

Is it just a hatred of Leeds as a club? Or a dislike and envy of the pleasure felt by others? How does the fact that we are so happy with Bielsa Ball, diminish Albion and the joy it (sometimes) gives you?

Thats a weird thing to ask........Football fans are pretty much all the same in many ways.......... Do you ever get envy when another clubs fans celebrate something? I certainly don't... There is no envy of anyone elses joy, as a fan Joy is felt when your team does well or arch rivals fail (in our case Crystal Palace) and the pain comes from our team getting beaten or under performing. I couldn't care less that you got promoted and I didnt care less when Derby beat you last season. Neither affects me in the slightest.

Being objective, as a neutral its clear Bielsa is a great coach who has done great for Leeds, It is also clear that the promising player whose development path our club have carefully managed in lending him to Newport then Peterborough and then Leeds has been great for the player and most certainly a big advantage to your promotion season.

But this is where it ends, the level of insult and shear lack of respect is staggering from a decent section of your fans. We keep hearing that nobody had heard of him before he turned up at Leeds, even though the numerous forums here on Bens progress prior to this season, show thats bollocks. The real truth is nobody in Leeds had heard of him (except Bielsa and your DOF) before he turned up. I read the scorn from many of your fans when they first heard you were getting a Brighton prospect with no championship experience. Literally tens of your fans had written him off as not good enough before he'd even pulled on the Leeds shirt, but now, now you've witnessed first hand what our club has known and invested in for years........."It was Leeds that made him", "It was Bielsa that made him" "he was crap before he came here" etc etc.

And then there's all this nonsense where you think any right minded footballer couldn't possibly choose a #TeamlikeBrighton over mighty Leeds. The lack of respect is mind boggling.

I think you'll find many fans respect that your club was the pre-eminent force in English football for a while 50 odd years ago, and respect your success and domination under Revie, just as we've seen Liverpool in the 80's, Man U in the 90's, Man City in the last ten years......... But our respective falls from grace where caused by different reasons, we didnt chase the dream, we were asset stripped. We fought, literally fought back from zero to be where we are, We respect others in the league, but we are here on merit, we've earned it and certainly dont believe Leeds achievements of 50 years ago make you some special case where a player couldnt possibly choose our 30K packed stadium, Brand new 21st century training facility or our Cat A academy. There's a lot going right for us, the arrogance displayed by your fans is at time staggering.

Hopefully you'll build from here, but the world has moved on since you were last in the PL, its bloody tough and you'd do well like Villa too finish 17th.....whatever you did in the past, you have a championship squad and you must strengthen. All your fans billy big bollocks means zip.

Good luck next season, you're going to need it. The championship it aint

 

[vagabond]

Back to the topic. I’d like our resident Leeds fans to pay close attention.

This is a classic deluded Leeds fan statement, one of the greatest hits. “Ben White would be at Shrewsbury next season if not for Bielsa”. I mean, come on [emoji1787]


https://twitter.com/Mayo_GodHelpUs/status/1288098107759243264

 

[Grassman]

Very well said [MENTION=15046]peterward[/MENTION] but I'm not 100% sure that it is always arrogance from Leeds' fans. I just think that like a lot of people who support 'big' clubs are simply unaware of us, our history and indeed what Tony has built for us in the last decade. That's hardly a surprise as even most commentators/football reporters also seem literally clueless about what we have now. To most of the footballing world we are little old Brighton, a provincial, locally supported club and quite frankly I quite like that, because we have stayed way below the radar.

As the old saying goes: the cool people know who the cool people are.

 

[Mr Putdown]

Football is suffering. To properly follow anyone is to suffer, no? Even the biggest most successful clubs, can't and don't win all the time, let alone almost every club, where nothing is EVER won except perhaps promotion every now and again.

But even by those standards, we have suffered, I put it to you. Because having once been great, and then fallen to the depths is worse, psychologically then never having been, and never expecting to. To being resigned to at the best mediocrity, and at worst... This is a nice point, I know, and I am not seeking to diss the suffering of being an Albion fan. I get it, in a way a Man U fan never can, or could because they haven't lived it and never will.

How can I explain? You could argue that two waiters, living in penury in Paris in the twenties are objectively equally miserable. But wouldn't it feel worse if one of them was a rich Russian exiled and stripped of everything by the Revolution? (And I am not saying that Leeds are in any way Tsarist aristocrats, obviously, perish the thought, just using the example to try and give colour to my argument)...

Or all those aged ladies in nineteenth century novels, who have gone down in the world and have to scratch a living working as governesses in a parvenu family that despises them and is openly contemptuous? Perhaps someone more literate than I can point them out, their names escape me.

The fans at Tranmere and Southend are hardly nouveau riche parvenus, but they were certainly openly contemptuous. "We all hate Leeds" they would chant, "You're Not Famous any More!" That we had gone down in the world was sadly obvious. Nor were we filling the back pages, or on the TV, no-one outside the division thought of us at all. But didn't the fact that they felt this need to aggrandise themselves in this way prove that actually we WERE still famous compared to them? And call me entitled if you like, maybe this demonstrates I am, but although on the day we played them on equal terms, and indeed many times they beat us, I don't believe that in wider football terms we were or are their equal. And I don't think you, if you were fair minded would disagree.

Being in the lower divisions can be a very pleasurable experience at times, don't get me wrong. This season is one of the best I have experienced in more than fifty years of following the club.
At times our football has been sublime. And there is an honesty about it that they tell me (I wouldn't know of course, as many on this thread have told me) is not present in the Premier League. I am not looking forward to all the bo11ocks in the over hyped media, there are advantages to relative obscurity. But of course it feels better to beat Barcelona in a European Cup semi final than to lose to Bristol Rovers in the rain. And the latter "suffers" by comparison to the former. And to watch your club sell its players, and ground, and training academy, to go bankrupt, and then have useless manager after useless manager playing the most dreadful football year after is to suffer. The fact that many, most, other lower league clubs have that experience as a fact of life does't make it any less painful when you are going through it.

That’s a great post, I get what you’re saying.

(Not that my opinion counts for much on here, being a palace fan .)

 

[Killer Whale]

Genuine question re Augustin. The RB Leipzig chief executive seems to still think that Leeds are contractually obliged to buy him. What’s your take on this.

On the original Ben White issue, the media in Leeds are still saying that Leeds are in a ‘battle’ to secure him. Why do you think they are using this language when Graham Potter has clearly stated that we have no intention to sell him?

Interested in your views as you seem to be fairly balanced in your opinions.

Augustin is a bust. Bielsa insists that every player meets certain fitness standards and weight and no-one is exempt. Even the so called star striker who cost all the spare cash and is on the big bucks. Augustin couldn't do it, and that was that. It is Bielsa's way or the highway.

We are on the hook because of a badly drafted contract and I can't see a way out of it. A disaster caused by a schoolboy error from the management team. It isn't Bielsa's fault though, he is a strict disciplinarian and I respect him for that.

On your second point I have no idea. I guess to placate the fans? Everyone who is everyone knows White won't be at Leeds next season. A lot ogf fans are letting the wish be father to the thought, hence this thread!

 

[Mancgull]

Augustin is a bust. Bielsa insists that every player meets certain fitness standards and weight and no-one is exempt. Even the so called star striker who cost all the spare cash and is on the big bucks. Augustin couldn't do it, and that was that. It is Bielsa's way or the highway.

We are on the hook because of a badly drafted contract and I can't see a way out of it. A disaster caused by a schoolboy error from the management team. It isn't Bielsa's fault though, he is a strict disciplinarian and I respect him for that.

On your second point I have no idea. I guess to placate the fans? Everyone who is everyone knows White won't be at Leeds next season. A lot ogf fans are letting the wish be father to the thought, hence this thread!

Thanks for the response. That's what I also heard about Agustin and fair play to Bielsa for not putting up with a player that doesn't meet his standards. However, it is a bit of concern that this mistake could be made and it will soak up a chunk of your available budget.
I've watched Leeds a couple of times on Sky this past season to see how White is doing. Where else do you think that upgrades need to be made? I'm unconvinced about Ayling, Cooper, and Bamford. Kalvin Phillips looks a Premier League standard player.

 

[herecomesaregular]

Do Guardiola and Pochettino talk about the influence Chris Hughton has had on their football philosophy?

Does the world's (formerly?) greatest player ask for Chris Hughton to be head hunted to manage Barca?

Serious questions? What's the answer old son? Would that be a no?

Love Chris for what he did for this club on the pitch, off the pitch and in front of the camera but this did make me chuckle.

 

[Springal]

Do Guardiola and Pochettino talk about the influence Chris Hughton has had on their football philosophy?

Does the world's (formerly?) greatest player ask for Chris Hughton to be head hunted to manage Barca?

Serious questions? What's the answer old son? Would that be a no?

I guess in the lieu of actually winning anything, anywhere then people saying nice things about you is the next best thing

*my bad - won an Olympic gold medal

 

[dazzer6666]

 

[blue-shifted]

The penny is slowly starting to drop. More like this will show their true colours

 

[herecomesaregular]

I really liked Tomori when he played for us on loan from Chelsea, he quickly became a favourite. He was a real asset to the team. Oddly, I always knew he was Super Chelsea's player kindly loaned to us in the league below, as part of his development. I guess it really gets to Leeds fans that such a great prospect as White (still only a prospect mind as he's untested in the Prem) was a loan from liddle ol' Brighton. Very amusing really.

 

[peterward]

I really liked Tomori when he played for us on loan from Chelsea, he quickly became a favourite. He was a real asset to the team. Oddly, I always knew he was Super Chelsea's player kindly loaned to us in the league below, as part of his development. I guess it really gets to Leeds fans that such a great prospect as White (still only a prospect mind as he's untested in the Prem) was a loan from liddle ol' Brighton. Very amusing really.

here here, Jesse Lindgard did great as a youngster, never arrogantly expected we could keep him

 

[GT49er]

I'm starting to feel sorry for poor old #Killer Whale - he comes on here talking (mostly) reasonable sense, and then some constipated amoeba with half a brain cell pops up with this sort of guff which makes Leeds fans look thick and graceless by association.

 

[Mancgull]

I'm starting to feel sorry for poor old #Killer Whale - he comes on here talking (mostly) reasonable sense, and then some constipated amoeba with half a brain cell pops up with this sort of guff which makes Leeds fans look thick and graceless by association.

Every team has its idiot fans but this guy has set the bar quite high.

 

[Dick Head]

I like the phrase 'Football is Suffering', I think you're right that we should be looking at it through that prism. We Brighton fans have experienced a suffering far greater than a bad 3-0 home defeat, and in many ways it defines us, but at the same time we fought to save our club just so we could be normal football fans enjoying the highs and lows of following our football team. But as we're talking history, this is our history.

Leeds have been 16 years out of the top flight, correct? In December 1996 we were a little over 13 years on from playing in the highest league and appearing in the FA Cup Final, yet we found ourselves in 92nd place in the football pyramid, six points adrift at the foot of the league, a second successive relegation looming to send us out of the league. Our beloved century-old ground, allowed to fall into near-ruin, had been sold a year earlier and would be knocked down in the summer, with nowhere to go, no plans, no land, nothing remotely approaching a stadium design or planning permission, no money left after the debts were serviced, no owner who cared about the club, no club willing to let us groundshare.

That is suffering that most fans don't experience. But it is only part of the story, because in the 23 years since we have experienced so many occasions of joy and pleasure that definitely most fans don't experience. Those depths caused a fan unity that was amazing to be part of, replacing the despised owners with a local saviour, supporting a thrilling final run of home games culminating in lifting the team off the bottom in the last ever game at the Goldstone and securing survival a week later; the club coming back to Brighton after two years in exile, four promotions at Withdean, striving for the Amex, and then the wonderful development of every single facet of the club over the past decade leading to promotion to the premier league and returning to Wembley in the FA Cup last season. That is the Opposite of Suffering, and we are lucky to have experienced it.

So yes, football is suffering, but it is also elation. The highs are higher because of the lows. After the rain comes the sun. Imagine the sheer boredom of being an Everton fan. I well remember being at Doncaster for our 17th straight away game without victory, a 3-0 defeat of ineptitude and inevitability. You will remember similar games during Leeds recent demise that will be etched in your memory. Your experience of playing Tranmere or Southend mirrors mine of playing Macclesfield in that fateful 96-97 season - a club we had never come across in our history, just up from non-league, beating us 1-0 under the lights at Moss Rose. I felt truly dejected that night. It is the lot of football fans to support dreadful teams from time to time, but if there is any additional suffering from a sense of 'we shouldn't be here, we're Leeds' - well that is just self-inflicted. But just like us at Macclesfield, every club's fans suffer from that, doesn't matter how far down the pyramid you go, there are always teams lower than you to give you a bloody nose. You don't lose to Canvey Island and Kingstonian in the Cup without experiencing that sense of 'why us??'

.....

We know what the football world is like outside the top flight. I think it gives us (some of us!) a sense of perspective in which to place our current fortunes and face our disappointments. It means we can observe with incredulity Newcastle despairing at their owner 'destroying' their club after they finished 11th in the premier league last year (a final position we have yet to reach in 120 years), or chuckle at Arsenal fan's sense of humiliation after they have failed to beat 'Brighton - who are dey Bruv?' for the fifth premier league game in a row. I would hope that Leeds fans will appreciate the same. But now Leeds are back, some of your fans memories of the last 16 years seem to be vanishing as wisps in the wind, which is the prism through which we are viewing these comments on Ben White.

​

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

I'm starting to feel sorry for poor old #Killer Whale - he comes on here talking (mostly) reasonable sense, and then some constipated amoeba with half a brain cell pops up with this sort of guff which makes Leeds fans look thick and graceless by association.

Most Leeds fans are decent people, I have a couple of friends who are proud Yorkshiremen and who follow Leeds, top chaps even if they do have an inflated idea of their club's importance and @KillerWhale is in my opinion a very good poster. But Leeds social media representation by fans is unbelievable, every team has a certain number of tw@ts but my word.

Edit: There are plenty of Leeds fans giving stick to some of the idiots. They'll have a hard time as some are so delusional.

 

[Stat Brother]

Thanks for the response. That's what I also heard about Agustin and fair play to Bielsa for not putting up with a player that doesn't meet his standards. However, it is a bit of concern that this mistake could be made and it will soak up a chunk of your available budget.
I've watched Leeds a couple of times on Sky this past season to see how White is doing. Where else do you think that upgrades need to be made? I'm unconvinced about Ayling, Cooper, and Bamford. Kalvin Phillips looks a Premier League standard player.

For all anyone knows, at the moment, Bielsa might not have shat in his own transfer bucket.
So he had absolutely no reason to bend his standards for the future good.

 

[Killer Whale]

Thanks for the response. That's what I also heard about Agustin and fair play to Bielsa for not putting up with a player that doesn't meet his standards. However, it is a bit of concern that this mistake could be made and it will soak up a chunk of your available budget.
I've watched Leeds a couple of times on Sky this past season to see how White is doing. Where else do you think that upgrades need to be made? I'm unconvinced about Ayling, Cooper, and Bamford. Kalvin Phillips looks a Premier League standard player.

The three key players in the Bielsa system are the striker, the holding midfielder and the playmaker, the enganche. And the latter two are the most important. arguably, as the wingbacks overload both wings, leading to scoring opportunities from midfielders as well as the main striker. (This isn't unique to him of course, the same positions are equally as crucial to you, I just don;t know your team well I am afraid. I haven't followed the Premier League at all).

Of those three players only Phillips is up to the job in the PL, IMO. The enganche, the most crucial player of all, is Hernandez. He has been fantastic in the Championship, but although he has the skill set still, he is too old and injury prone. And Bamford just isn't good enough, He is a fantastic team player, his work rate is second to none, and he is unselfish in putting other players in, but he wastes too many chances.

Our goal keeper used to be a weakness, Casilla cost us promotion last season, IMO, but the new young French keeper, Meslier has been outstanding, but we will no doubt get another keeper, all the same. We need a replacement for White, probably two strikers, and a new enganche.

Ayling has been a revelation under Bielsa. A different player entirely. Whether he will be good enough defensively in the PL I don't know. None of our players were that good individually this season, apart from Hernandez, Phillips and White. We were just coached superlatively, everyone knew their role, the press was relentless and we were fitter. The sum was greater than the parts, we were a team not a bunch of prim donnas. And all the better for it.

 

[DarrenFreemansPerm]

I really liked Tomori when he played for us on loan from Chelsea, he quickly became a favourite. He was a real asset to the team. Oddly, I always knew he was Super Chelsea's player kindly loaned to us in the league below, as part of his development. I guess it really gets to Leeds fans that such a great prospect as White (still only a prospect mind as he's untested in the Prem) was a loan from liddle ol' Brighton. Very amusing really.

From memory Villa didn’t act like dicks over Tammy Abraham going back to Chelsea either. Kind of seems to be a Leeds thing. Who knew.