Simon Austin Sport
Thursday, 21 August 2014
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Meanwhile, Cellino said he was "ashamed" of the team's performance against Brighton on Tuesday night, when they lost 2-0 at Elland Road. But he refused to blame manager Dave Hockaday for the defeat.
"I was so pissed off with him during the match, but then afterwards I realised it wasn't his fault, and the fans need to realise this," he said.
"He doesn’t have the players he needs to do what he wants. I would like to blame Hockaday - that would be the easy thing to do and might make me feel better - but the truth is he just doesn’t have the players at the moment."
Cellino hopes to bring in as many as six new players, including Cagliari starlet Adryan.
That deal is proving quite complex though, so could take a while.
Offloading unwanted players is proving difficult, basically because there aren't any clubs coming in for them.
Sam Byram certainly isn't in this unwanted category, yet reports of big offers for him are wide of the mark. I understand that there haven't been any firm bids for the full-back.
Certainly Cellino doesn't feel the transfer strategy of the last few seasons has been that effective.
While he says only about £2 million has been spent on transfer fees in the last three seasons, the wages bill last season was £19 million.
So the low transfer fees don't mask the fact that a lot of the players were ageing and on big salaries. Perhaps not the most prudent strategy.
Simon Austin at 13:49