Football League Thread 14/15

[Kyle]

Thought so. It's absolutely ridiculous.

[Matt]

Besides, once you're in, you're in, they can't disqualify you at a later date*.

*yes I know they suspended Cellino but he was only deemed to pass it on a temporary basis pending the outcome of his appeal in Italy and he's now been allowed to take control again now that his conviction is spent. And to be honest, had they done more than ban him for a few months I think he'd have taken it to court and the whole thing would be found unlawful.

[Matt]

Uwe Rosler set to be named new Leeds head coach.

Most good. I really feared we weren't going to get the Italian David Hockaday

[Lineker]

I give it a month.

[Adam]

Will he even make it to the opening day of the season? Why is anyone taking that job?

[Matt]

I'm still confident that Cellino wants what's best for the club (because that's what's best for his investment) and I'm willing to give him this summer to prove me right. Getting Rosler would be a good start, spend money in the right places, sign the young lads up to a couple more years (as he already has with Cook) and I'll be happy.

[Lineker]

Leeds United will unveil their new head coach at 15:00 BST. Adam Pearson, the club's executive director, will appear at a press conference with the new gaffer. Former Wigan manager Uwe Rosler is the favourite to land the job.

[Matt]

Press conference was held early:

Rosler happy with the idea of working with Cellino, he knows he's in charge of picking the side, tactics and coaching the players with an input as to transfer targets.

Cellino didn't want to attend the press conference because this was about Rosler, not him.

Pearson has offered Redders his academy role again and would be more than happy for him to take up the role but understands he might have offers from other clubs.

Head of recruitment to be appointed in the next week or so, he is UK based. (Probably the guy from Celtic we were after, then)

A little behind schedule in terms of player recruitment so far but should be on track soon with Rosler in and the head of recruitment not far away.

Aiming for at least a top 10 finish next season which is an improvement on the last 4 seasons.

All sounds good, so I'm fully expecting news that we'll be docked some points for something stupid and Byram sold to Norwich for a twix and a can of dandelion and burdock.

[Adam]

Serious question, do you expect Rosler to last very long? And how many more chances will the Leeds fanbase give Cellino before going "nah, we don't need this".

I'm curious to see if this eventually goes the way of Venky's, or of Portsmouth.

[Matt]

I think he's corrected a lot of the mistakes he made early on, he's gone and got a reputable manager that's worked in England, he's bringing in a recruitment guy that knows the English game and hopefully Pearson will reign him in on a bit of the crazy when it comes to sacking managers willy nilly. Though saying that there was only McDermott unfairly dismissed IMO. Hockaday and Milanic were terrible managers, which was his own fault for appointing them in the first place. Redders was decent but never going to be good enough to get us into the playoffs which has to be the long term goal. I think as long as we don't have a really bad run of form and we end up in the top 10, Rosler will still be here in a year's time.

The important thing now is that he brings in good players in positions we need them and he keeps hold of the 3 youngsters (not counting Cook since he's already signed a new deal).

I can't see us going the way of Portsmouth since he's actually stabilising the club finances after the previous 2 regimes. At worst we stay about where we are, he gets bored and sells us.

[The Lusophone]

The finances will be fine, which is exactly what Cellini achieved with Cagliari. The problem is stability within the club. Cagliari had like three dozen managers in two dozen years under Cellini, and I think it'll be exactly the same here. It might - it probably should - get Leeds back to the top flight - which would be refreshing imho - but I'm not sure what else it will do.

Of course, if Leeds do get back to the top flight then the TV deal means that pretty much all bets are off after the first 6 months or so.

[Matt]

If it gets us in the top flight and we're still financially secure, I'm not bothered if we have 3 dozen managers a season.

[Adam]

Aye, finances I'm not worried about - maybe shouldn't have used Pompey as an example. I said Venky's as they seem to have stepped back since all those ridiculous decisions and managerial changes, and have let Gary Bowyer get on with the football side of things and they've improved steadily as a result. Maybe I'm wrong and one of our Blackburn fans can set me straight, but that's how it seems to me. Rosler seems like he could be that kind of appointment for Leeds, but I feel Cellino is just too bizarre and unpredictable a chairman.

[Thrilla]

Things are fine on the field at Blackburn, financially kinda screwed though. They'll likely even that out by selling Rhodes and Gestede this summer and then we'll be okay financially but screwed on the field.

[lanky316]

Teddy Sheringham has just taken over at Stevenage. Not sure what to make of that appointment as I thought Westley had done great to stabilise and push for promotion this year against the odds. He was working as an attacking coach at West Ham so no actual management experience going into what will be a difficult job. Released a fair amount of the squad as well so going to need to rebuild. Good luck to him, I think he's going to need it.

[Adam]

I know he's a hero in Stevenage or whatever but you must be better off without Westley. His teams have always played non-league style anti-football. This could be a good, fresh start for the club. Good luck to Sheringham, he must've done something right this season as he was brought in to improve West Ham's attacking play and it certainly paid off for them.

[lanky316]

He helped bring in a non-football culture to the club and that's how we got where we are now and why it didn't work at Preston, the players weren't prepared to work that hard or work with his methods. There are few clubs with less financial resources than us (bloody good facilities though) so it's something we've needed. A change in football culture is clearly going to be the way forward and it's just how he goes about it and I don't think we've got a long timespan for him to get things going before it'd be too late. He'll change things around and bring in his own system and backroom staff and we'll see how things go. It's looking a worryingly big rebuilding project and not sure it's a "first job" position. We've kept some key players and judging by the tight games with Southend there's still some good youngsters around to build on, it's about filling in those gaps.

All we can do is see, I'm just unsure about changing things up when we were in a fairly strong position for an unknown quantity.

[Lineker]

Wycombe/Southend is still goalless after normal time, extra time has just started. Southend have looked like the better side.

[lanky316]

Clear penalty not given to Southend earlier and now Wycombe take the lead with a superbly taken free-kick. Probably going to finish this way, such a tight game that's probably a decider.

Nope after a ridiculous amount of time wasting and every bit of stalling Wycombe could manage referee adds the bare minimum and Southend grab their equaliser right at the end. Penalties to decide it.

Edited May 23, 2015 by lanky316

[MDK]

FUCKING SOUTHEND