Speaking on the On The Judy Podcast, Bradley Johnson has been speaking about his departure from Leeds United way back in 2011.
In 2011, Leeds were a completely different force than they are now. They’d just come up from League One, and things were rather uncertain under the ownership of Ken Bates.
However, despite issues off the pitch, on the pitch, they had a number of exciting talents.
Indeed, the likes of Max Gradel, Luciano Becchio, Robert Snodgrass, and, of course, Johnson were lighting up Elland Road in the early 2010s, but sadly, the Whites were unable to keep this core together.
Johnson left for Premier League Norwich City in 2011, and while he left on a free after refusing to sign a new contract, he’s admitted that he wanted to stay at Elland Road.
What’s Johnson said about Leeds?
The Blackburn midfielder looked back on his time at Elland Road and his departure.
“I was playing week in week out, I was coming to the end of my contract and they were buying players. It wasn’t about the money, it was about being on parity with everyone else. If you play every week, you want to be paid like you’re paying every week. They bought players who couldn’t get in ahead of me. It was time to negotiate a new contract and I said ‘I want to earn what this guy’s earning or the same as what this kid’s earning’. Ken Bates was just like ‘nope, this is what we’re offering’, so I didn’t sign it. It got ugly towards the end with the chairman, but the fans understood,” Johnson said.
“The fans sort of understood, I always said that I wanted to play there, but it had to be right for me and my family, towards the end, Leeds fans were singing ‘sign him up, sign him up’, and I wanted to stay, but I saw out my contract and even Simon Grayson wanted me to sign. Towards the end of the season Norwich came for me in the Premier League and I had to go.”
Shame
It’s a shame that Leeds were unable to make the most of this generation and the likes of Johnson were forced out of the club.
United had a real core of talents who, given the right amount of time, would have been good enough to get them to the Premier League ahead of schedule.
The likes of Snodgrass, Jermaine Beckford, Johnson, Jonny Howson and Kasper Schmeichel would all go on to establish themselves in the top-flight, and if Leeds had been able to keep all of those players together, they surely could have been promoted sooner.
Luckily, Leeds would eventually make the Premier League under the stewardship of Marcelo Bielsa.
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