3rd Nov , 2006 :: by
Chris Hudson
ean Gregan has been told by Leeds manager Dennis Wise that
he is no longer required at Elland Road
.
"I spoke to Sean and, if he can get a club to go to on loan, he is most
welcome to do that," Dennis told the LUFC official website.
"We had a long chat and I gave him my opinion.
"He knows the situation - he is not part of my plans - and he can
go on loan."
Sean had already fallen out of favour with the previous Blackwell regime
and has only appeared twice this season, so Wise's decision is
not unexpected but a little disappointing nevertheless. Sean has
appeared over seventy times in just over two years so he can't
have been that bad. Wise would have done well to dig a little deeper
and he would have discovered that the route to the play-offs last
season was not based on the partnership of wunderkind Kilgallon
with Butler but rather the early season double-act in defence of
Gregan and Butler. (Kilgallon has been hopeless this season, giving
away five goals by his individual mistakes alone). Nontheless,
Gregan lost out to Kilgallon last season because Kilgallon's contract
was up for renewal and his agent made it known he wasn't signing
on the dotted line unless he was a first-team regular and Blackwell
acquiesced in this to keep the York-born youngster at Elland Road.
In his first 15 games of last season we only lost three times until he
was replaced by Kilgallon. He was out of favour until February
when he again took part in in a strong run by Leeds Utd. He was
missing when we got the jitters towards the end of the regular
season but played in the memorable play-off semi-finals when we
unexpectedly overcame Preston who were in much better form than
us.
To conclude; Sean
Gregan is
not a fans' favourite and so is an easy target for a manager to
off-load. But the statistics from last season do not lie. Leeds
get more points with Sean Gregan in the team than without him.
He's missed nearly every game this season and we now are relegation
fodder. Wise has made a mistake and not done his homework. We
said Blackwell would regret letting Pugh go - we were half right,
it was his successor who was left to rue that decision. Eddie
Gray's decision not to play Batty in the latter part of the relegation
season was highlighted as an error of judgment and we were right
again. Now Dennis Wise has made his first mistake with this decision;
he has to learn that he can imprint his personality on a team
without ditching senior players whom he thinks threaten his authority.
It's the old adage - don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
