Many took this evidence and argued that Leeds needed to spend more. We saw the likes of Max Gradel, Jonny Howson, and a raft of other first team players leaving after rejecting contract offers and we saw figures that suggested a lack of investment at the same time as the club spending £7 million on the East Stand redevelopment project. No readers commented that we should spend enough to top the table, surpassing the jaw-dropping £65 million then newly demoted Portsmouth paid that season – that would have equated to an average wage of £40,000-45,000 per player!

Today, Blackpool published their annual accounts. This takes in the 2010-11 season in the Premiership. Readers will remember that Blackpool famously refused to make megabucks signings and instead signed eleven players before the end of the transfer window whose wages could be afforded should the worst happen, and Blackpool find themselves demoted. Blackpool fought valiantly, but ran out of steam and were indeed demoted.

Blackpool’s figures show that last season they budgeted £12.1 million for wages. This should be combined with their £3.5 million transfer budget for the sake of comparison with Leeds’ budget which combines the transfer budget in a “pot” or “warchest”. This £15.6 million budget places Leeds’ £12.5 million budget this year into perspective. Mainly because the low figure reported by Blackpool would place her only 12th in 2009-10’s table of Championship wage-expenditure. This suggests a very significant drop in average expenditure last season and suggests that to compare Leeds’ current wage budget with past wage budgets is unfair in the current economic climate.

So with this extra evidence, how do well do we think the Board have backed our managers this season?

Hesco Bastion, protecting the troops. No, we’re not being paid to advertise. But it’s a message that inundates fans: it’s painted on the stands, it’s repeated over loudspeakers and radios.

It’s one of the least controversial statements you could make as a company linked to the military. What do we think about Iraq? Libya? Should we go to Somalia? Or bolster the Falklands? (shush-we’ll-antagonise-Luci). What about Blair, Brown, Cameron and Clegg? Whatever we think about them and their policies, red, blue, yellow (even green!) we all support the troops.

And what about Leeds? Most of us are rightly angered at Ken Bates and his Board. Think back to this time last year and we were so close to automatic promotion we could almost taste it. Since then we’ve gone on to lose five first team players, and not one of them left solely because Grayson thought that they could be improved upon. Not one. Whatever we think of their replacements, it’s not a healthy sign for the future.  Lorimer can talk about over-spending, but we can afford to keep our players without pushing ourselves into debt. Instead, our Glorious Leaders have decided not to spend significantly on them. £9.5million budgeted for the whole playing side; £7million for a redevelopment project alone. Can’t we afford better contracts Peter? Are you sure?

‘Who wants promotion?’ Ken probably asked, probably chomping on a cigar: ‘I`d prefer a hotel in Beeston.’

We’re right to “bawl and shout” about it. We had a miserable December with only 2 points from 12. That’s been enough to get managers and players sacked from less ambitious clubs than Leeds. But I think the fans would prefer to sack the Board.

From this time last season, we watched our promotion push crumble; the only entertainment provided by Ross McCormack and Billy Paynter fighting for the role of “Championship Torres of the Year”. Yet we got behind them, we applauded their efforts and we sang them on. It’s worked wonders for Ross, at least, who has come out this season and showed why he was in Actim Index’s top 10 when on form at Cardiff: because he’s bloody brilliant.

We’ve backed the players at matches as best we can, but we’ve been worn down by sky-high ticket prices and an ever-present reminder (the East Stand) of the decision not to keep our most valuable assets: the players. And that’s not a slur on our current players. We’re scared that the ones we have now will be leaving too: that’s half the problem. Clayton and White slot in well, and suddenly it’s a race against time to get them on decent length contracts. If our new players end up being that good I’ll just have to see them ripped away from me.

But spare a thought for the players. Robbie Rogers has uprooted himself from the other side of the world, and what he’ll witness is his teammates out there in no-man’s land trying to do their jobs amongst the apathetic cynicism of the fans, broken only by anger and insults flying from one end to the other. Bates (when he’s here) sits magnificently in his place, with Peter Lorimer sat near him. Bates conducts the protests of the masses, Lorimer frowns furiously at the plebs:

‘don’t they know we’re trying to build a lasting legacy here?’ he probably mutters, probably reading the latest quote for another development project.

The fans continue to “shout and bawl” and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a pasty white “Breadman the Impenetrable” in the Kop.

The players must be absolutely bemused. I wouldn’t blame Snoddy for slowing from his mazey run, looking up at the baying crowd chanting at a man who isn’t even there, making a despairing chuckle and giving up, watching Zaha Hadid and the Lotus Revolution race each other to Leeds.

These lads are footballers. I doubt many of them came to Leeds expecting a club that apparently can’t afford to keep its players, and a support that’s so fed up it can barely bring itself to cheer them on – even if it tries. When times get tough it’s that legendary twelfth man that makes all the difference. Players do their jobs, but it’s the vocal belief of thousands that has the ability to inspire them. Unlike Ferguson’s lot, our twelfth man doesn’t hold a whistle. Our twelfth man has always been our support and it hasn’t been fit and healthy this season. Who can blame us? But we’ve a good side, despite Bates.

We can be hypercritical as fans but let’s admit it, our season in December 2010 included Schmeichel, Naylor, Bessone, McCartney, and as I said: Billy Paynter & an underperforming Ross McCormack. Our team is better now than it was last season. We’re obviously missing Max, and we’re missing Jonny Howson & Bradley Johnson. But let’s think back to the dull days of League One; more precisely let’s think back to January 3^rd 2010. There was no Max Gradel, no Aidy White, it’s unthinkable now but Robert Snodgrass was actually only a late sub. Our back line included Jason Crowe and Richard Naylor; our midfield included Michael Doyle and Andy Hughes. This team was good enough to beat a Manchester United side that included Berbatov, Rooney, Valencia and Giggs.

As the Guardian concluded:

There were long spells when they out-passed their opponents. The victory was no fluke and that, perhaps, was the most shocking aspect.

Don’t forget Ken Bates and his little lackeys, but also remember Simon Grayson who finally got us out of League One, masterminded a victory against Scum, nearly got one over on Liverpool, and forced Spurs and Arsenal to two replays. Apart from one match against Scum this season, we’ve never been embarrassed by a Premiership team when Grayson has been at the helm. If we can come up big on those big occasions, why can’t we win the playoffs? Let’s have faith, and blast the cobwebs off the rafters on Tuesday. We need to do our part – anti-Bates chants before the match, at half-time and after the match, but let’s scare Brum’s kecks off during the match.

Bates can’t sell one thing of ours: we are the club– our support traces itself back through our fathers and grandfathers to the glory days of Don Revie, Billy Bremner and Norman Hunter and it’s our kids that will be cheering the club on long after Bates has relinquished his power.

So fuck the Board and their property developments.

We are Leeds, and we’ll see our lads win!

Written by TimPM

When it comes to sensationalism few do it better than Ken Bates. In his programme notes today, he speaks of a £2m overspend on the £9.5m player budget set at the start of this season. In doing so, the Leeds United chairman thought he’d put an end to chants of “where’s all our money gone?” by throwing a huge number out there to distract Leeds United fans.

Interestingly though, Ken Bates fails to offer any point of comparison. As impressive as £11.5m sounds, it’s nothing more than a number without context  - in this case, the context is the rest of the Championship.

Before we get into all that, here’s the quote in full from Ken Bates’ programme notes;

January is a month of the transfer window; excitement, rumours, misinformation, double-dealing and shadow boxing. All the fun of the fair. Meanwhile, the club’s management have to cope with all this while still running the club.

In Leeds’ case, we have bought Danny Pugh, obtained the loan of Andros Townsend, extended Maik Taylor’s contract and are in negotiations with a few players that are already at the club.

“Where’s the money gone?” is the latest chant from the vociferous few. Well, I’ll tell them! Simon Grayson’s player budget was £9.5m for the year. As I write, we have so far committed £11.722m, over budget by nearly 23 per cent.

For anyone that doesn’t understand what he means by “player budget”, this is the collective total of all transfer money spent (and allegedly received) alongside the players wages for the year.

Unlike most clubs, Leeds United’s transfer kitty is included in the wage budget.

With £9.5m to spend, Simon Grayson can theoretically afford to pay 25 players (an average Championship squad) £7,300 each, which sounds reasonable enough for a Championship player.

The problem is, that unless Simon Grayson gets all his players for free, he can’t actually afford to offer them that amount because every time he spends money it comes off the total budget. Spend £2-3m buying the quality additions Leeds United fans are demanding and you’re left with very little to pay them.

What’s interesting is how this relates to our turnover. Plans are afoot to cap wage spending to 70% of turnover. Since our last published accounts were 2009-10 the £27m turnover I’m going to use is based on League One football. It’s safe to say our turnover has increased significantly since then.

Nevertheless, even when we use the League One figure against Ken Bates early season budget this only accounts for 35.2% of our turnover. Even with the “overspend”, we’re still a long way short at 43.4%.

I strongly suspect turnover for last season was closer to the £35m mark which would reduce that percentage even further. You also have to take into consideration that The FA’s guidelines do not take transfer fees into account, which is what Ken Bates has done here. That means other clubs could spend 70% of their turnover on wages and still pay for new players with other funds.

How This Compares To Other Clubs 

As the last published accounts are 2009/10, I’m going to use a table published a while back by The Swiss Ramble – A renowned football blogger and financial expert who compiled the following using public accounts;

As you can see, Leeds United’s reported spending on wages is much higher than what Ken Bates is now telling us. This isn’t because he’s “cooked the books” or is lying to us now, it’s simply because Leeds United’s published figures are incredibly vague. The £14m above includes everybody – Ken Bates, Shaun Harvey, Simon Grayson, the coaching staff, the tea ladies etc…

Knowing what we know now, and assuming our budget has risen somewhat since League One, I’d suggest Millwall (also League One figures) is closer to the actual spending on the first team that year – perhaps a million or so more in Leeds’ case.

Unlike Leeds, most other clubs separate their figures out to offer further transparency. Leeds are not the exception to the rule, but their accounts are amongst the vaguest I’ve ever encountered.

Setting aside that figure entirely and using the figure Ken Bates gave us today, in 2009/10 only six clubs would have spent less than Leeds United on wages.

In itself, that is a shocking statistic, but when you consider that other clubs have separate wage and transfer budgets, it gets even worse.

All of a sudden, the £11.5m Ken mentions starts to sound less impressive. Simon Grayson has basically been left to lead a promotion charge with the budget for a relegation battle.

So we’ll ask you again Ken – “Where’s all our money gone?” 

Anyone that’s read the sales pitch attached to the 2012/13 season ticket renewal form may have sensed the underlying tone of desperation.

It’s understandable too, times aren’t great for Leeds United. The club lost a lot of season ticket holders at the end of last season, attendances are down 3,500 fans per game and the club are hovering around the mid-table spot fans predicted a lack of investment would result in.

Overall, there’s little going on at Elland Road that suggests progress is being made as we approach seven years of Ken Bates.

A quick skim over any Leeds United messageboard or the social networks fans frequent shows a fanbase no longer willing to tolerate the excuses and continue coughing up huge sums of money for this perceived lack of investment. Whilst £7m is pumped into redeveloping an East Stand we can’t fill and don’t own, the manager is left to settle for free transfer and loanees that lack the necessary quality to seriously challenge for promotion.

Of course, Ken Bates couldn’t care less. Happy to dismiss any fans that dare to question his decisions as “dissidents” and “morons”, the Leeds United chairman is in the unusual position of being able to abuse his customers, knowing that an irrational sense of loyalty will keep them coming back regardless.

But the drop in renewals for the current season can’t be overlooked. For all the non-matchday income and corporate opportunities Ken Bates’ reign has heralded, the Leeds United owner can’t escape the fact that ticket sales will always account for the vast majority of the clubs income.

You can build all the hotels, bars and museums you want, but none of them can hold 20,000 people paying £30 each to stand/sit in a two foot squared gap for an hour and half, broken only by a fifteen minute gap where they mindlessly battle their way to the front of an overpriced refreshments stand to sink more money into your pockets.

Let’s say an hotel has 50 rooms, charged at £60 per night. Even if you fill that every single night of the week (which you won’t) that’s only £21,000 per week. Take all the staffing costs, the electricity bill, tax and all the other overheads away from that sum, and you’ll be lucky to post small profits. That’s why there are very few independent hotels remaining, because the only way people are making money in the hotel game is by owning huge chains of hotels where minor profits multiply into a viable business.

The pub game is just as bad. I came into some money a few years back and considered buying into a busy city centre bar with some people I knew and was amazed by how small the profit margins were. This is a bar that’s busy every night of the week, that doesn’t rely on fortnightly trade for the majority of it’s custom, yet the profit margins were pathetically low. It would have taken me decades to recoup my initial investment if profit margins held steady. Again, success here relies on large chains like Wetherspoon’s monopolising the market and multiplying the small profits of hundreds of bars into a healthy business.

The point I’m getting at is this just isn’t a realistic stream of income for a football club. The margins are too low and it will take so long to recoup the initial investment that I doubt if we’ll reap the benefits in my lifetime, never mind 79-year-old Ken Bates’.

While this is going on of course, the profits of the primary business are suffering. The millions upon millions of pounds of pure profit there for the taking from the stadium that’s already built and easily filled by giving the customers what they want has been forgotten. Or taken for granted.

Ken Bates’ plan relied on the blind loyalty of the supporters. A stubborn breed who refuse point blank to stop attending games because of Ken Bates. He’ll be gone soon enough we reasoned.

Seven years on, the pattern continues and we’ve stagnated (via League One). Only in the last year or so have the masses really started to vote with their feet. Enough is enough, thousands decided to stop attending and all of a sudden, there’s a problem. The walking cash machines have had enough, and attendances are suffering as a consequence.

The situation is so bad, attendances are now lower than they were in League One and that can’t be dismissed as a result of the recession, because that’s a pattern we’d see at every football ground across the country – and that’s simply not the case.

Ken Bates doesn’t care what the fans think, but at this moment in time he’s losing money. If the 3,500 drop is still there at the end of the season, that will represent a loss of over £2,000,000 (based on a conservative £25 per ticket). If this is about to get worse as more people refuse to renew, Leeds United could see millions more shaved off their turnover next season and no amount of bars and corporate seating will offset such a loss.

All this leads me to wonder whether the “leaked” Fabian Delph story was a ploy to lift spirits as season ticket renewal forms were sent out. Leeds United “don’t discuss transfer targets” we’re told repeatedly, yet the club’s Director Peter Lorimer thought it was OK to tell a supporters club at an On The Road event – was it accompanied by a wink? Did he think they’d keep it a secret?

Ken Bates is like the Derren Brown of football, a master of manipulation and misdirection and whilst I’m only speculating here, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if this deal fell through at the last second. The groundwork for failure has already been laid with Simon Grayson warning “there are many obstacles to overcome”.

Maybe I’m being overly cynical, supporting Leeds United is certainly conducive to such a personally flaw, but I suspect there’ll be a fair few fans out there waiting until the very last second before renewing and will base their decision on the January transfer market. Over to you Kenny.

Since the attendance stats we published last year are still being viewed regularly, we felt the update we’d promised later in the season was probably about due.

The good news for Leeds United is our average attendance has risen since October 2011, the bad news is that The Whites are still experiencing the highest drop in numbers in the division – this despite sitting only one point off the play-offs.

As the table above shows, Leeds have lost an average of 3,566 fans per game on last season. Let’s say each of those lost sales was worth a conservative £25 to the club, that would mean Leeds United are currently losing £89,150 every home game on 2010/11. In total, that would equate to over one million pound for the 12 home games we’ve played so far!

The most worrying sign for Leeds is that the divisional average has risen quite substantially and is quickly coming into line with 2010/11 attendances. Back in October, sales were down 6.04% on the previous season. At the halfway stage, that’s already changed to just 1.70% which is a substantial increase in no way helped by the situation at Elland Road.

More worrying still, is that Leeds’ average attendance is currently lower than it was in League One. In 2007-8, The Whites averaged 26,546. This dropped to 23,813 in 2009-10, which is only marginally higher than what we’re currently seeing, but higher nonetheless.

We’ll pick this up again towards the end of the season.

Watford are a surprisingly good side, Grayson insisted in all his pre-match interviews. Don’t under-estimate them, they’re on a good run.

The bottom line is that we have played another relatively poor team and we’ve performed badly against them again. This isn’t a Championship thing: it was the same in League One. And this isn’t an individual thing: from Prutton to Clayton, we’ve been through enough centre mids to know that it’s a tactical thing.

I’m not going to get too deeply into those tactics. I could move little circles around a green screen for an hour, but only the SkySports generation would be interested. Simply put, I reckon we’re playing too defensively and paying too much attention to the opposition.

‘DEFENSIVELY? SIMON “2-0-8” GRAYSON?!’

Yes, defensively. When we lose to these easy teams, it’s almost always with a 4-4-2. The strikers could be Andy Keogh, Michael Ricketts or Jermaine Beckford; if you don’t get the service you can’t score the goals. The wingers, too, rely on short passing from the full-backs and the centre-mids to get going. That’s the trouble, the centre-mids aren’t getting into these games.

At Vicarage road it was Pugh and Clayton. At Griffin Park two years ago (if I remember right) it was Howson and Doyle. The official line then was a “sodden pitch” that “cut up quickly”; the line from Tsar Bates’ Radio on Saturday was a “sloping pitch.” @EmptyUK summed up:  

“Eddie Gray sounds.. hammered. Just listening out for the chink and clang of a hip flask. #lufc #twitterwhites”

But the reality is that we’re facing teams whose only weapon is athleticism and who will look to go route-one given half an opportunity. Our answer isn’t to throw on Bradley Johnson as an attacking midfielder to grab the initiative (especially this season, since he’s gone), it doesn’t seem to even be to play 4-5-1 to allow the two centre-mids to defend against this battering-ram of a team, and an attacking centre-mid of whatever style  to keep them on the back foot. It’s to sit back and invite them on to us.

In that scenario, there’s only one winner and it’s not Leeds. In 2009 Max Gradel replaced the injured Snodgrass on the wing, the prolific Jermaine Beckford struggled for supply. We weren’t a poor side.

It looks ominous. We’re a great young, enthusiastic team when we go forward, but we seem to be constantly worrying about making mistakes. We slip up and there’s another scapegoat: Beckford, Naylor, Johnson; Kisnorbo, Becchio, Howson. We’re changing formation match after match, we’re changing the team around in the most bizarre of fashions. Attacking dynamo Nunez overlooked in favour of a 4-4-2 with Keogh and Becchio together. We’re only a mouthy Scottish munchkin from Villa and a non-entity from Spurs off the same problems we found ourselves in last season.

We’re good enough to play confident football. We’ve played Scum twice since our two relegations. Once we reacted to them, ended up scared to pass within ten feet of a red shirt and lost heavily; Once we set out to play our own game with confident, athletic, physical players and beat them 1-0.

So from now on, damn the torpedoes: let’s obliterate these b*stards and get promoted.

-An original article written by Gryff, mental age 10, in orange Crayola.

With exactly one month to go until the transfer window opens, you’d think there would be more pressing matters for the news agencies and sites to report than potential moves, but alas, fans love nothing more than dreaming of what could be, so why shouldn’t the evil news agencies deliver that to them?

In the case of Leeds United, two players have already been churned out of the old rumour mill. The first, 30-year-old German goalkeeper Thorsten Stuckmann seems somewhat believable but will do little to fuel dreams of an automatic promotion push for Whites fans. The six and half foot giant has managed just one appearance for League One Preston and will be considered the first sign of another forgettable transfer window by the masses.

The second rumour may provide more room for optimism, as Leeds are rumoured by Sky Sports to be part of a Championship trio chasing Stevenage’s Lawrie Wilson.

Sky Sports claim that the 24-year-old has been instrumental in Stevenage’s rise from the Conference to League One although 9 goals in 132 appearances suggests he’s no Max Gradel. However he has topped Stevenage’s assist table for the last two seasons.

Northern Ireland’s veteran goalkeeper Maik Taylor signed for Leeds United today, providing Simon Grayson with much needed cover following the injury Andy Lonergan sustained last month and the subsequent meltdown of his understudy, Paul Rachubka.

In total, there are now five goalkeepers at Elland Road including young Alex Cairns and on loan Alex McCarthy who is likely to start in goal for the visit of Barnsley this Saturday after an impressive performance in the 2-1 win over Burnley at the weekend.

At 40 years young, Taylor’s age may be of some concern to fans, but his wealth of experience could be just what The Whites need. The Irish international is no stranger to a promotion fight and was a key figure in the Fulham side that went from League One to the Premier League in three seasons (1998-2001).

Taylor went on to play for Birmingham City in the Premiership where he was voted the EPL Fans’ Goalkeeper of the Year 2003-04.

Even if Taylor never starts a game for Leeds United, his presence at the club is worth the transfer alone. Andy Lonergan and Alex Cairns could learn a lot from such an experienced professional, but so too could the rest of the team – when you’re aiming for promotion, having players around that have been there and know how to handle the pressure can be a huge bonus.

From a fans perspective, looking down at the bench and seeing Maik Taylor in the seat Paul Rachubka once kept warm will be a comforting sight.

Reports suggest Leeds United and Preston North End are close to agreeing a loan deal that will see the Liverpool-born striker join Phil Brown’s side on loan.

According to reports from Preston North End sites, the deal hinges on what wage percentage Leeds United will accept for a player who is believed to be amongst Elland Road’s highest earners.

Billy Paynter’s time at Elland Road has been a disappointing one for player and fans alike, with the striker managing just one goal in 24 appearances after arriving from Swindon Town in 2010 as League One top goalscorer 2009-10.

Preston are currently 9th in League One and amongst the favourites for promotion following relegation from the Championship last season.

Simon Grayson has dismissed suggestions that Billy Paynter will leave Leeds United on loan to another Championship club.

Whilst unwillingly to let Paynter join another Championship team, the Leeds United manager revealed that a League One club has expressed an interest and that Leeds are currently considering their options.

Billy Paynter joined Leeds United on a free from Swindon Town at the end of the 2009-10 campaign – a season in which he was League One’s highest goalscorer with 26 goals in 44 appearances.

The striker failed to make the step-up to Championship football however and has managed only one goal in his 24 appearances for The Whites. His poor goal return led to Leeds United fans dubbing the Liverpool-born striker “Barn Door Billy”.