Leeds United: Our season so far

By Kim Bjerregaard

I hate international breaks but at least this one gives me the chance to write about our start to the season.

I'll say first off that I've been extremely impressed by the way our players seem to fight for the badge, each other, Neil Warnock and of course the fans - almost every player gives 110% in every game and we have the "Leeds United" mentality, Never say die!

I've been very impressed by Neil Warnock’s ability to change the team around during games, something his predecessor had big trouble doing - and when we consider all the off pitch activity with talk of takeovers/ investments, you can’t help being impressed by his coolness and his ability in both finding the right guys for us and getting them to play the way they are.

Of the players I've been wildly impressed by most, but a few deserve a special mention.

·   El Hadji Diouf, let’s be honest we almost all hated the fact that he joined the club, but oh my, he’s been a revelation, I haven’t seen him perform like this since the World Cup in 2002.

·    Sam Byram, well I had not heard much about this kid before he suddenly played in pre season (Only in FM2012 and he was pretty shit there). He's managed to take the step up, much like Tom Lees did last year, but without the loan experience, he's surely one for the future, I can see him captaining Leeds in the Premiership within a few years.

·     Luciano Becchio, my favourite player in Leeds (almost of all time!). He's working, he's scoring and he's really loving his football again, I think that Warnock’s style of football suits him better than Grayson’s. I predicted him getting 26 goals this season, I wonder if that’s too low?!

·       Paddy Kenny, Mr Confident, the guy makes very few mistakes and is cool as f*** - I talked to a mate of mine about what a keeper like Kenny could have done for Grayson’s Leeds teams, I think that if Grayson had managed to get a keeper of Kenny’s qualities into his team he might still have been manager of Leeds United.

I could have mentioned others who have impressed me, Pearce, Austin & Lees spring to mind as players who are also doing very well. I have actually only been disappointed in one player and that’s Luke Varney, I think he's awful and it looks like Neil Warnock thinks so too after benching him. Don’t get me wrong, I'd like to like him, I liked Billy Paynter even though he was pretty awful too, but at least he tried. Varney runs around acting like he's Messi and like his teammates don’t get his points, I'd be ok with him not playing for Leeds again actually, he seems the rotten apple in the basket.

But all in all, can anyone complain about the season so far? 7th place in the league and we knocked Everton out of the cup (In a game that embodied what Leeds United is all about). I hope this investment happens soon and that we're in a position to get a few good signings in come January - I firmly believe that this is our year - we've not had a team, a team spirit or a manager as good as this in 8-10 years.

M.O.T

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