Leeds United: The pitfalls of promotion

Article by Jeremy Taylor

All teams want to get promoted from the Championship, no matter what. It’s not called the promised land for nothing and the windfall that comes with it is of such magnitude now that managing to actually get there changes everything.

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Such is the difference, not just in a fiscal sense but in terms of the gulf in standard, that navigating the leap is an enormous challenge in itself. No matter how strong a side is in the Championship, wholesale changes need to be made in order to stand a chance in the Premier League.

Herein lies the problem.

The key ingredient in getting out of the Championship, besides an ability to win matches, is team spirit and cohesion. So the effect of altering this dynamic once promotion has been gained is fraught with dangers. Yet it is compulsory in order to stand any chance.

Look at Crystal Palace as a case in point. They gained promotion, albeit luckily, and as such Ian Holloway immediately set about adding the quality he felt he needed to survive. As you’d expect from a character like Holloway though, he went about the task with such gusto that, three months and no less than eighteen signings later his squad was filled with players that didn’t know each other at all and as such their togetherness was lost. It takes a special type of manager to handle a transition like that and not lose control completely.

The other side of that coin shows us West Ham. While they only signed a modest (and possibly more sensible) ten players during their preparation for a crack at the Premier League, they are still in all sorts of trouble, with Allardyce facing claims he barely has enough quality players to put out a side.

So, let’s detach from the here and now and, purely in the interests of discussion, have a think about what might face Brian McDermott should Leeds do the unthinkable and somehow find themselves as a Premier League member come August.

In order to answer the question of does he go short (West Ham) or does he go long (Crystal Palace), we must first have a stab at assessing our current squad.

I’ll start by stating that 70%-80% of the current squad isn't good enough for the Premier League. This instantly put’s McDermott in Holloway territory. He’d have to build a team more or less from scratch and then try and get them playing football, properly.

Hopefully the talk of Varney and EHD moving on very soon is true, as that would potentially enable McDermott to steal a head start and slightly reduce the task, as I don't see McDermott signing anyone now that couldn't (in his opinion) cut it at Premier League level.

So, it's now just a case of stripping away the players from the payroll that are simply taking space in the dressing room.

We should start by looking at players that would form the spine of the new look Leeds team. Let’s say this includes the likes of Mowatt, Byram, McCormack, Stewart (hopefully), Murphy, Dawson (if he can get fit and breakthrough in time), Kebe (if he does well, Wooton (if he can start to fulfill his promise) & Zaliukas (if he continues his impressive start).

Question marks will remain over Smith, Poleon, Pearce, Lees and Austin but I doubt they’d all be actively sold, with most instead preferred as backup squad players (unless good offers came in of course).

This means we’d be losing at least eleven players such as the likes of Brown, Tonge, Drury, Green, Diouf, Kenny (in my opinion we’d need a new keeper), White, Pugh, Ashdown, Warnock and probably a selection of younger players too.

So, using loose calculations, McDermott would probably be looking at bringing in about fifteen new players to give the club a decent stab at staying in the division, should we actually get there.

I’ll not bother speculating who these might be. After all, we don’t even know who Brian’s looking at now, never mind in six months time.

But what I do know is, any club going into the Premier League can afford to spend at least £20m on new players. In the case of Leeds United I’d expect that to be more due to the significantly larger gate receipts we’d get over someone like Crystal Palace, Hull or Burnley.

The other point is that I feel Leeds United would find it much easier to attract top talent than Crystal Palace or Burnley or Leicester. Leeds United in the Premier League is an attractive proposition for almost any player.

I’ll re-iterate that this is merely an exercise in hypothetical forward thinking.

Nothing more than an innocent consideration of the challenge that McDermott would face should we actually achieve promotion.

Still, I’ll expect a backlash from the section of fans that refuse to consider any outcome for Leeds United other than utter disaster.

One thing’s for sure though. No matter whether we sank or swam up there, we’d be a stronger, bigger and more respected club as a result.

Either way we’re heading in the right direction for the first time since we had a team with shaved heads battling through a semi-final of the Champions League, and that is undoubtedly a great thing.

@Jezaldinho

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