Mark Lawson in The Guardian talks about his ‘beloved’ Leeds:
Ironically, the solution to the first problem - selling Bowyer and Woodgate - has only partially solved the second, because the bad boys went for a fraction of their 2000 prices. In that sense, Leeds are football's Enron. In the Elland Road case, there's no suggestion of criminal behaviour but the value of assets was catastrophically overstated.
The chairman Peter Ridsdale apparently became known to the players as Father Christmas because he handed out such handsome contracts, but the nickname is now also appropriate in the sense that everyone has stopped believing in him.
With Ridsdale sidelined, the shots are now apparently being called by Allan Leighton from the Post Office, a business whose recent history suggests that Leeds are now in the grip of an undertaker who suffers from the delusion that he's a surgeon. Leighton has been responsible for the removal of one high-class manager in David O'Leary and the humiliation of another, Venables.
Yet the one relative winner is Venables. Few people would ever have bet that Tel would leave a business - as he surely must soon leave Leeds - looking like the only fair and decent geezer in the place. His jumble-sale buys of Paul Okon and Teddy Lucic have performed creditably and he's coaxed effort and elegance again from Harry Kewell, while being dignified and open with the press.
And just a final word for Woodgate. In Newcastle United, he's joining another up-and-down club and one that has also spent massively in the hope of buying success. In fact, the Newcastle chairman shows signs of having studied at Ridsdale Academy.
Ed. Now that we can only dream.