Leeds United vs Brighton - Sky Bet Championship Preview

It's finally here, tomorrow marks the start of the 2013/14 Sky Bet Championship and we start off with Oscar Garcia's Brighton. After ex Leeds United assistant Gus Poyet got sacked live on tv. The ex Barcelona youth coach became their new manager. At this point I would talk about league positions but this is pointless because both teams have no points and no goal difference as well as the other 22 teams in the league. I like many other Leeds fans have been eagerly waiting for the new season to get underway amist new hopes that we would finally gain promotion back to the Premier League where ultimately the club belong.

So what are the expectations for the new campaign. Leeds still look like they need one player to complete the squad, a squad which would then be capable of fighting for promotion. After finishing 4th last season, Brighton will be hoping to improve and gain promotion to the Premier League. Looking at the odds Brighton are 16/1 to win the league with Leeds at 22/1, promotion wise Brighton are 9/2 with Leeds at 7/1. For top six Brighton are 6/4 and Leeds at 11/4.

It hasn't been that long since the sides last met. A nine man Leeds gave Brighton a good fight and only just lost 2-1 on the penultimate day of last season. Nine men due to two unfair sendings off to Austin and Diouf. Lets hope it's not the same ref again.

As for the team news, there is not much to comment on really. Sam Byram will not be playing due to an hip injury whilst Rudy Austin and El-Hadji Diouf are suspended after being sent off against the gulls on the penultimate game of the season. 

The only injury news for Brighton is that Craig Mackail-Smith could be out until September with an ankle injury.

My prediction is a 2-1 win for Leeds, out squad may not be complete but Brighton's is unsettled with a new manager so Leeds should be able to pull through. A post match review will be up on Sunday, you can keep up to date with this blog @LUFCWorld and follow me on twitter @AJWoodward29

Slovenia, Wabara and Bates

This blog will look at a number of things that have happened in the world of the whites recently. 

First of all there's no better place to start than today and the Leeds players are currently in Slovenia getting ready to play their second pre season friendly tomorrow. The whites will be playing against a Slovenian Xl kick off at 5pm GMT. Most of the players have made it over including the new signings in Hunt, Murphy and Smith, also Byram will make it after injury, however this time last year no one was aware of him and he only came because we had no choice but we don't look back. Sadly I can't be in Slovenia for the tour due to school but I will try my hardest to bring as much insight into what happened on my upcoming blogs which will be confirmed on Twitter @LUFCWorld. 

Looking at transfer news there seems to be one person who seems to keep getting rumoured to be joining the whites. If you we're to believe other news sources  then the Tommy Rowe deal has gone but I should be talking about this at a later date. The one major one however that keeps popping up (If you haven't guessed by the title) is Manchester City's Reece Wabara. Even tweeting out earlier in the week that it was time to make some movements which is making fans (including me) believe that he is on his way to join Leeds. I'll talk about him more in a later blog but this I just wanted to get out now. 

Last but not least is that it's now been 9 days since Ken Bates was last chairman of Leeds United, the day after he left we signed our first £1 million player since 2005 in Luke Murphy, but what impact did Bates himself have on the club. Lets go back to the beginning in 2005 when he brought out debt stricken club. New times of optimism where expected, I was excited for a new dawn and a hopeful return to the Premier League and it looked like he would deliver when we reached the play off final, but Watford spoilt our party and took the place on the Premier League. This brought more debt problems and the year after brought the opposite of the year before and we were relegated to League 1 for the first time in the club's history. We rebuilt over the League 1 years with some close shaves in the play offs and in 2010 regained our Championship status. At this point I think we had our strongest squad in the Bates regime with players like Beckford, Becchio, Johnson, Howson, Snodgrass, Naylor etc. We were a force and we looked unstoppable at stages. But we started to sell them and bring in players like Brown and O'Brian. The last signing of the regime was a good one in Matt Smith. So to sum it up, the relationship was rocky, spending more on corporate and less on the team and the Premier League dream didn't help and even lead to protests. But to round it up for them Bates haters, if Ken Bates didn't buy Leeds in 2005 (even though he says heh didn't and it was a group from Switzerland) then the chances are that there would be no Leeds United. As much as there would have been a new would we have wanted that over our old Leeds United?

That ends this blog, the next confirmed one is on the 2nd August (but could be as soon as the 31st July) and is Leeds vs Brighton preview. Any more blogs will be confirmed on twitter @LUFCWorld and on Google+ at Alex Woodward. You can also follow me on twitter @AJWoodward29

2013/14

So the new season is upon us and I'm back at my desk wondering what to write about that's vaguely interesting. If you follow me on twitter @LUFCWorld you would have seen that I was delaying this blog as it was meant to come out on the 1st July but now with me being impatient and there being so much more to write about, I came to the conclusion that this would be a good time to start. 

So lets start almost a month ago. With there being as per usual lots of players expected to sign for the club, we got out first new signing under the McDermott regime which was 24 year old Matt Smith from Oldham who famously scored for them in the FA Cup against Oldham and Liverpool. I was interested in signing after seeing his performances in the FA Cup and since when it comes to scouting new talent McDermott seems to know what he's doing. We would have to wait some time for our next signing but it was an significant signing for the whites as it was out first £1million as Luke Murphy signed from Crewe. He looks like a good player and is very promising. The signing number three came when the worst kept secret in football was released and Noel Hunt signed for Leeds. I've always liked Hunt and bag wanted him at Leeds for a long time.

So it came to yesterday and Leeds were finally back and starting pre season at Farsley. I had been waiting for the match all week and as per usual it was a landslide for the whites winning 5-0 with Poleon and White getting 2 of them, Noel Hunt getting his first and Matt Smith getting 2 in his first match. I seems to be one of many congratulating the two on scoring on their debuts, my favourite image from the match was Noel Hunt trying to get the main part of Kung Fu Footy Player

We also last month had the fixtures for the new season released with us starting against Brighton, we have three games on sky all in August with our away game at Leicester on the 11th and our home matches against Sheffield Wednesday and QPR on the 17th and the 31st all on Sky Sports.

The next confirmed blog will be up on the 2nd of August for the Leeds vs Brighton preview and any more will be confirmed on twitter @LUFCWorld you can also follow me @AJWoodward29