Portsmouth 6 Leeds 1

[Northern Red]

Marching on together

Down to division 1

hahahahahahaha

Couldn't happen to a nicer club

[chalky]

:sport5: how funny

What a score. My uncles a leeds season ticket holder.

He aint going to be happy.

[Taz]

I said before the season started that Leeds will go down

Think my mate made a wise choice in staying away from there this season :how funny:

[bcfc seattle]

I'd guess Leeds is actually more likely to go down this year. Pompey seems to have started figuring it out.

[chalky]

Yeah leeds will definately go down.

Watched the Prem last night and in the interview with reid after the match he said

"When i took over i knew it was going to be hard, but i didn't imagibne it to be this hard"

Made me chuckle. I feel for him, it's not really his fault.

[Guest pogue mahone]

you can't loan your best defender (mills) and leave your best striker out (viduka) because you don't like them and not take some of the responsibility.

reid is very limited as a manager despite what his mates in the media would have you believe. leeds should have realised this and released him in the summer after he did the job that was asked of him and kept them up. by extending his contract they now have to pay him off a reported £850k if they dispense with him. which will bring their spend for compensation to managers up to £7m in the last 20 months.

[Northern Red]

News from up here is that Reid is almost certainly going to be sacked today. Names mentioned are Paul Hart, Glenn Hoddle, George Graham, and most interestingly, Neil Warnock.

[Guest pogue mahone]

Warnock wouldn't goto Leeds. Even ignoring the fact that he's a life-long Blade, I would say that Sheffield United are an infinitely better prospect than Leeds at the moment.

Hopes of Strachan would be folly, as no Premiership manager worth his salt would want to take on such a poisoned chalice. That leaves them three choices:

1) An out of work manager. Someone who is looking to rebuild a damaged career (like Glenn Hoddle or Bryan Robson) would be unlikely to take a shot, as without wishing to state the obvious, unless something miraculous happens, Leeds are heading for relegation this season, and in all likelyhood next. A manager looking for one last job before he retires may be interested, but someone like George Graham (ignoring his previous with the club) would be looking to finish their career on a high, or failing that something other than an all-time low.

2) Someone looking for a chance at a top club. In this instance they're really looking for someone who doesn't have any long term ambitions in the game. If they have no long term ambitions, then why would they be looking for a chance at a top club? Usually only someone who is looking a bit unsteady in their job (like Paul Hart) or someone who has taken their current club as far as they can either through a lank of resources at their club or a lack of ambition. Ronnie Moore's name would normally stick out at this point, and coupled with his experience of successful relegation fights with Rotherham these last couple of seasons, would be a good choice for Leeds. Unfortunately for Leeds, he'll not only have more resources available for the next year or so at the Millers, Leeds can't actually afford to have any ambition at the moment, short of making sure the club exists at a decent sort of level until the debt is at least manageable. So current lack of job security, and Leeds connections may work in Paul Hart's advantage.

3) Someone looking for a first management job. Now, ignoring the fact that this could be career suicide for the prospective manager concerned, it is a hell of a gamble for a club in Leeds's position. If he does badly you may need to dispense with his services - creating another set of compensation payouts - before it gets too late, and with a first time manager you don't know how he will turn out, but they tend to fail more often than not. Only Alan Curbishley, Steve Maclaren and Chris Coleman are first-timers in the Premiership, and the jury is still out with the latter two. Only one of the five managerial virgins in the first division has a club in the top half (Hart, currently 12th with Forest). A player like David Batty could take the role, knowing that he could fail, continue with his playing career, and resume his career "older and wiser" when he hangs up his boots. The last example of this was Stuart Pearce at Forest. Unfortunately (or maybe even fortunately), since then, the FA now has a rule stating that you cannot manage a side without a certain level of coaching qualifications. In which case, they will need to look elsewhere, and unless any ex-Leeds players have retired recently, that would only leave them with Kevin Blackwell and Eddie Gray. Assuming that they want the job of course.

Of course the other problem remains. That one is of course loanees who can't give a toss - or even look like they do. Are they acting this way because they have no confidence in Reid, or is it connected to the board, or their own lack of interest or even fitness. Now is arguably the time to find out, although the bad news is that if you loan someone for a season, you're stuck with them. The Premier League won't allow them to send Pennant back, and they'll run into the same problems with UEFA over the likes of Sakho. Only players loaned for less than three months can be sent back or recalled.