This is Clarkeonenil’s regular comment column, cutting through the various passing issues of football and getting to the core principle in the shortest time.
Bits and pieces.
So what do we make of the January 10 transfer window in so far as it affects Leeds United? Well not a great deal really, in a division where only Norwich City and Southampton flexed their financial muscles we kept our money mostly in the secret Bates accounts. The “undisclosed” fee for Gradel is without doubt less than the Saints paid for Barnard, the loan signings seen to suggest we are still following the model that limits transfer spending to a minimum but encourages players to sign with high wages (we are probably paying the same ball park as a top 6 CCC club). Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing if we knew it was part of a strategy for long term financial health and Bates didn’t constantly insult our intelligence with claims of a decent transfer fund, but as we all know neither is provable, now or for some considerable time.
Overall I don’t think I have been impressed or excited (at the time of the signing) with any player that has come to Leeds since the start of 2008-09. Even the successes of Becchio and Snodgrass from that time were accompanied by Showunmi and Robinson. All of Grayson’s signing have been a bit non-descript (and before the “IGWTettes” start that can be a good or bad thing, it’s about what they bring), the two that cost a small amount of money, Bromby and Gradel, are squad rather than first 11 players, the likes of Higgs, Crowe and Kisbnorbo are “horses for courses” L1 standard, Grella and Somma for the future (one hopes). Personally I still believe Williams is influencing the transfer policy but it’s for Grayson to exert his influence more if that is the case.
One thing is for sure, even with McSheffrey and Lowry, the latest instalments in the hit and miss loan policy, we look no better or no worse equipped for the 19 games to come.
Painful.
Despite the lingering memory of the third round of the FA Cup something is becoming clear with regard to the PL, it’s going to be won again by the only club that seems to care enough to win it, Manchester United. To me they were lucky to win the 3 on the trot they banked between 2006-09, you could make a case that their consistency allowed them to overcome a better team in each of those seasons, but this isn’t the case in 2009-10, they are clearly the best team despite Chelsea being top all season and despite a stuttering forward line. To say a fourth PL title on the trot to Old Trafford is bad for the game is understating it but it’s going to happen come what may.
Equally painful is the inability of the one club within the “traditional” top 4 you’d like to see do it to have a proper tilt at the title this season. I have had a kind of faith in Arsenal and Wenger to convert the beautiful football into substantive success at some point, but the point keeps slipping until it reaches today where the faith disappears and you can see them finishing 3rd forever. What is wrong with the best collection of talented under 25’s on the planet? No idea, injuries over the last 3 years haven’t helped, the creeping frustration of their fans neither but whatever the missing ingredient is it doesn’t reside in North London.
Wenger is as good a manager as SAF but even he must be questioning the difference between the two clubs after the demolition of last Sunday.
Equally painful.
Is watching Stoke City play away in the PL. I wasn’t that impressed with their anti-football style as they beat Arsenal’s 3rd team in the FA Cup but that was nothing compared to the dirge they served up at the Stadium of Light last night. It didn’t help that Sunderland were equally poor but the boys from the potteries took it all to a new extreme. You could see why they have only scored 4 away goals all season and are destined to score the least in the whole division, no ambition, no quality, nothing but a systematic assassination of the game justified (in their eyes) by the need to turn season 2 in the PL to season 3.
That is the crux of the declining brand (in entertainment terms) of the PL, a top end filled with the rich/debt filled and permanent, the middle occupied by clubs happy to be there and the rest believing that survival is an achievement in itself. Add Bolton Wanderers, Blackburn Rovers, Hull City and Wolves to the two clubs that so royally bored the nation last night and you have one hell of a turgid road block in what is described without irony as the best league in the world!
If I could will 3 of those quality-less clubs down it would probably be Stoke, Bolton and Hull but unfortunately we will still have at least one of them around next season being as ugly on the pitch as their North Midlands amalgamation of towns is in real life.
