If fitness was a big issue, it is very valid to ask why a club the size of Leeds was unable to work around the floods. TBH its an excuse which shows up poor management.

As was mentioned during the year they had trouble finding places at such short notice. After a bit yes they get settled down but again that time is lost.

Remember the main first team came back to training much later that year (beginning of December) compared to usual years (a week or so into November) so they were going to have cram the work into a smaller window even before the floods.

there wasnt just one reason for our struggles last year, but a multitude of them. We had numerous issues that combined to create a pretty unique situation. We had the pre-season floods, the adjustment to working without Sinfield and Peacock, injuries, loss of form for certain players, Hardaker etc etc.

Now i would agree that none of these in isolation are good enough excuses for our performances, and it is likely that even as a combination it could have been handled differently.

My opinion is that early season we underperformed and at a certain point the club made a deliberate decision to use the year as a development year for giving the young players a chance in the expectation they would reap the rewards going forward. I think there are higher expectations for this year from the club for this year than people may expect.

These are elite Athletes we are talking about here not the local social clubs over 40's.
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect better especially 4/5wks into the season plus they didn't lose a FULL pre-season they still had some weeks & a trip to the USA.
Then onto the "nomad" reasoning they had ample time & offers into the year to settle into a training base imo & as Schoey pointed out Cas for e.g were out on a field with Tractor tyres etc & no mod cons in the gym either.
The excuse culture was built early & once they realised how far behind the rest they were the Club ran with it imo.
Aldo before anyone mentions expectency etc again its far from unreasonable to have expected better performances even allowing for injuries & the ridiculous Squad management.
Anyway the season is less than 6wks away & they can't start with ready made excuses so lets see how the next stage if the transition is handled because thus far its fallen flat on its arris.

Yes they are elite athletes.....but they're also facing other elite athletes who had much better preparation, not some teams from the local social clubs. And Ibdidn't say they lost a full preseason but they lost enough of it to be crucial.

That is exactly what they didn't do. Obviously you have 't read mcDermotts new year interview? where he explains about the mistakes of last year, and that he put trying to win matches ahead of development of players. Completely the opposite to your opinion of course.

Of course it was. It really only comes down to a handful of supporters, two or three on here, who are gullible enough to believe poor excuses. Excuses that of course won't be repeated this year.

Garry Schofield may not be right on many things, but I agreed entirely with his assessment of this when he compared what Leeds could and should have done to the facilities "enjoyed" by a number of SL clubs such as Cas - which probably were no better than what Leeds could, should and probably did sort out.

Again I'll reiterate, nobody is saying leeds preseason was completely destroyed but the difference between success and failure in elite sport is 1%, those are the margins and it only had to be off by that much.

This season if similar failure to get the best out of the squad is apparent then yes, it's time for a change.

Shame William shows he's out of his depth in a discussion once again by resorting to his sarcastic childlike alter ego. We get it, you can't relate to a game and a club you once loved so you spend your time on social media trolling it's supporters. Good use of your time by the way.

All things being equal though i think it's pretty safe to say or at least to have the opinion that we were more than just 1% off though mate especially wrt performance.
Yes injuries played a part aswell as failure to replace/recruit adequately & yes it adds up but the season as a whole was an abject failure with plenty of it IMO avoidable & self inflicted.

I don't disagree that things on reflection could have been handled better and the club have alluded to that themselves, there were failings even in the set of circumstances leeds had to deal with. I'll rephrase, if you're 1% off in all areas (I won't use the word facets, Brian Nobles trade marked that!) And 5% of in some that adds up to being way off your opponent, 1% is a huge margin in this environment.

They did sort some out but contrary to what some on here think it didn't/doesn't happen in a click of a finger. As mentioned the main group were already 3 weeks later starting back than usual even before Boxing Day. It was going to be a big ask to cram the normal amount of preseason work in regardless, lose even a bit of time after that then it becomes impossible.

As for Garry Schofield he couldn't even coach teams well in normal circumstances, a flooded preseason he'd stand no chance.

True & i agree to an extent but the garbage we served up was akin to much more than 2/3 of those uncontrollable 1%'s imo & i thought the Club hid behind those 1%'s too often for too long.
Of course like you say we'll see soon enough if lessons were learned but thus far recruitment & pre-season performance wise im of the opinion we haven't & could be in for another long season.

If that's the case and a similar season is had then I'd agree that a change and fresh approach is needed. Staying anywhere as a head coach for nearly a decade is pretty unheard of and with or without influential leaders on the field the club needs to be finding new influences and a new, relevant direction.

Whether Schoey could Coach or not is irrellevant wrt his comments he's done enough pre-seasons etc to pass a detailed judgement.