I guess many of you can relate to the title of this post – seems to go hand in hand with being a Leeds fan, right?
But for the last 25 years or so, we’ve seen a fair few departures – some of which have been forced, others that made profitable, financial sense and then the downright blood boiling.
I’m sure that, like me, there are many of you that have one or two that still leave a bad taste in your mouth when you think about them, or at least did at the time for quite a while. You probably don’t need to rack your brains too hard either.
Obviously, there were a few notable ones that for different reasons had a bit of an impact on us.. So, keep reading to see if I’m on ye’ wavelength!
Alan Smith
For £7 million and to say he could have gone to a good Valencia side at the time and Newcastle United, to go o’er the Pennines to that lot in many ways was below the belt. Especially being a boyhood Leeds fan. Though, at the same time, what a minority of Leeds ‘fans’ did to his family home was unforgivable. Still though, for someone who bled white and then to go join them felt a bit sickening for me.
Jack Clarke
This stung a bit, I’ve gotta admit. He was handy for us in the Championship – off the back of a good season and Marcelo Bielsa was using him well. But to sell to Tottenham when they weren’t going to start him and only for £8.5 million, to me, didn’t make sense. I know we got him back on loan, but his value increased I reckon by then, so it did us no favours. I think he probably got the wrong advice as well, but you can’t really tell young’uns these days can you?
Rio Ferdinand
Obviously this bothered me, because we didn’t really need to sell at the time. He’d only been with us about a year as well and we were strengthening that lot who were a rival for the league. It didn’t affect as much as Smithy, because he’d been with us since he was a kid – but it weakened us and we didn’t really replace him either.
Chris Wood
Off the back of the season we had with him – just missing out on the play-offs, to sell him – and to Burnley, was pretty annoying. We didn’t really replace his goals the next season either so he was a big miss. It’s even more of a sickener as well because if we’d have gone up, he’d have done the business for us.
Charlie Taylor
Another we let go to Burnley along with Wood and also off the back of a great season, Taylor was one of the most consistent left-backs in the Championship as well, but it did take me by surprise when he moved – I’ve got to admit.
He’s also probably one of the best left-backs we’ve had in recent times and he’s still proving that he’s a handy player even now, so, yeah – that still sticks in my mind. It definitely weakened us.
