Leeds team from a few seasons back...

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

f***ing ridsdale. If any of us did that to a company, we'd get director's bars. The f***** shouldn't be allowed near a board again. The daft t***s also mortgaged off a great part of their seasie tkt revenue for the next 25 years (I exaggerate not) to spunk in the short-term.

 

 

That's like taking out a feckin whopping loan to spunk in the January sales. Directors were flying around in private jets, Steh Johnson was getting paid twice what he went into negotiations with as his maximum bargaining position etc

[fyds]

They didn't buy Walcott - lacked ambition you see.

[Bailo]

Convinced more than meets the eye went on with Leeds - I think a fair few people got very rich out of their decline.

[Scally Bob]

I know the Insolvency Practitioners who worked with Leeds before it went wrong and after. They also worked with the people who eventually took over.

 

Simple bad mangement and stupid errors of judgement. If you earned a fixed amount each month but in one month you got a bonus equal to three months' normal monthly income, would you budget based on that abnormal month? That's all Ridsdale did. But the income dried up and he still had to pay the bills. Cue securitising season tickets and failing to meet payments as they fell due.

 

Part of the problem was though that he vastly overpaid for players who would never have a resale value and put them on ridiculous contracts. Seth Johnson was the classic case.

 

The glue that held all this failure together was O'Leary, who is an idiot.

 

If it's any consolation though, Danny Mills is still waiting for £2m they owe him.

[Earl Hafler]

To be fair to O'Leary, he had little knowledge of the financial situation. He asked for players, gave the board transfer targets and they delivered. When he found out how much Johnson was on he almost p****d himself.

 

O'Leary's a decent manager, nothing more.

[Gray - YPC]

Wot no formations?!?!?!

 

----------------Martyn----------------

 

Mills----Woodgate---Ferdinand---Harte

 

Bowyer---Dacourt---Batty---Kewell

 

------------Viduka---Fowler------------

 

---------------Robinson------------------

 

Kelly---Radebe-----Duberry---Matteo

 

Smith---Bakke---Johnson---Wilcox

 

-----------Keane---Bridges-----------

 

 

Have I forgot anyone??

[Herbie von Smalls]

To be fair to O'Leary, he had little knowledge of the financial situation. He asked for players, gave the board transfer targets and they delivered. When he found out how much Johnson was on he almost p****d himself.

 

O'Leary's a decent manager, nothing more.

disagree on o'leary's competence. he had a bagful of money to work with, and although he did well with it for that one season, when the chips were down he lacked the backbone to motivate the squad sufficiently. he lost the dressing room too - didn't he write an ill-timed book?

 

he's someone that likes to take the credit when the team does well, yet looks to deflect any blame from himself when things go badly.

[Guest Cardie]

Probably the fact that most of them were on more than 2 million pounds a year and they were spending at a stupid rate.

[Mad_Fer_It]

have to say i enjoyed watching that team, same as west ham from a few seasons back, they had talent...

[Ronnie Whelan]

It went wrong the moment Ridsdale started dreaming and risking Leeds financial situation based on qualifying for the CL for the next century just as the bubble was about to burst on football's tv money.

 

 

Quite a similar similar situation to the current arsenal one, bar the bubble bursting on footballs tv money.

[Guest efcrmagic]

They had a cracking side did Leeds back in the day.

 

Kewell was brilliant at times, really awesome, I remember a goal he scored V Sheff Wed at Hillsbourgh, clipped with the outside of his boot and it hit the crossbar and went in, fantastic goal.

 

Ian Harte was a excellent left back, Ferdinand and Woodgate where a great centre half pairing, Gary Kelly at right back. As someone said, Bowyer was great in midfield at times and then they had Keane and Smith upfront and Viduka was a excellent player for them. Bridges was s*** hot in his first season for them too.

 

What the hell happened to them? People tend to forget how much Venables screwed them up too. Yeah Woodgate was sold behind his back but by the time he'd gone they where already in the mire after Venables proved how crap he is.

[Guest Red Mist]

Leeds were already on a massive downward spiral by the time El Tel took over, but yeah he certainly helped f*ck them up even more. They had a good team, got a few decent results against us too (2-0 at Anfield I think, 4-3 at Elland with Viduka scoring all of their goals).

 

Such a shame about what happened to them though, my heart bleeds for them...

[R A Softlad]

What the hell happened to them? People tend to forget how much Venables screwed them up too. Yeah Woodgate was sold behind his back but by the time he'd gone they where already in the mire after Venables proved how crap he is.

 

Naaaa, they'd sold a lot of the crown jewels by then and Venables only went there cos he was promised a decent budget only to be told he actually had £5m after he'd just spent £4.75m on Barmby. Then the s*** hit the fan

 

The blame lies at Ridsdale's feet.

[Gilps]

Can we ask Jumpers for Goalposts back for one day to explain where it all went wrong?

[Stevie H]

Can we ask Jumpers for Goalposts back for one day to explain where it all went wrong?

 

he's a moderator on red cafe these days.

[Bailo]

They had a cracking side did Leeds back in the day.

 

Kewell was brilliant at times, really awesome, I remember a goal he scored V Sheff Wed at Hillsbourgh, clipped with the outside of his boot and it hit the crossbar and went in, fantastic goal.

 

Ian Harte was a excellent left back, Ferdinand and Woodgate where a great centre half pairing, Gary Kelly at right back. As someone said, Bowyer was great in midfield at times and then they had Keane and Smith upfront and Viduka was a excellent player for them. Bridges was s*** hot in his first season for them too.

 

What the hell happened to them? People tend to forget how much Venables screwed them up too. Yeah Woodgate was sold behind his back but by the time he'd gone they where already in the mire after Venables proved how crap he is.

Disagree with a few points there - Harte was an awful LB and always will be save for some excellent freekicks. And it was Bowyer, not Kewell who was the outstanding midfielder those few good seasons. It's quickly forgotten but Bowyer's form then was superb, he looked a genuine European-class player. Can't understand where thats gone.

[MarkD]

Remember watching them in their CL run (went to the semis) and wished we played like that. They definitely looked like the coming force in English football. Lots of things seemed to happen at once to cause their implosion, bad financial management, the Woodgate/Bowyer trial, O'leary's book, the fall out from their defeat at Cardiff in the FA Cup - but they definitely were good to watch.

[growler]

I think people underestimate the impact of the court case too. woodgate and bowyer were lynch pins in the team.

 

Can you imagine if gerrard and carra were caught doing that whilst playing for us??

[Maldini]

They had a cracking side did Leeds back in the day.

 

Kewell was brilliant at times, really awesome, I remember a goal he scored V Sheff Wed at Hillsbourgh, clipped with the outside of his boot and it hit the crossbar and went in, fantastic goal.

 

Ian Harte was a excellent left back, Ferdinand and Woodgate where a great centre half pairing, Gary Kelly at right back. As someone said, Bowyer was great in midfield at times and then they had Keane and Smith upfront and Viduka was a excellent player for them. Bridges was s*** hot in his first season for them too.

 

What the hell happened to them? People tend to forget how much Venables screwed them up too. Yeah Woodgate was sold behind his back but by the time he'd gone they where already in the mire after Venables proved how crap he is.

Harte was sh*te, he just covered it up by scoring a lot of goals.

 

What happened to them is simple, they sold all their best players because they were mismanaged. No big secret really.