Leeds owner hits back at pundit Karen Carney after what she said about the club

Leeds United owner Andrea Radrizzani hits back at pundit Karen Carney after what she said about the club and their promotion to the big time.

The former footballer turned Amazon Prime pundit has come under-fire from the West Yorkshire outfit after it was suggested the club were promoted to the Premier League partly because of the disruption caused by COVID-19.

The Whites mocked her on social media, with owner Andrea Radrizzani getting involved, as footage was shared of Carney’s analysis of Leeds’ relentless style following their thrilling 5-0 win over West Brom at the Hawthorns.

🤔 “Promoted because of Covid”
🙂 Won the league by 10 points
👋 Hi @primevideosport pic.twitter.com/Ctz18sksZA

— Leeds United (@LUFC) December 29, 2020

Carney offered plenty of praise for Leeds’ recent performances throughout the season and their demolition of the Baggies, however she questioned if whether they can keep the same pace over a full season, sparking backlash.

She said of Marcelo Bielsa’s side: “They outrun everyone and credit to them.

“My only concern would be that they blow up at the end of the season.

“We saw that a couple of seasons ago and I actually think they got promoted because of COVID, in terms of it gave them a bit of respite.

“I don’t know whether they would have gone up if they didn’t have that break.”

The admins behind Leeds’ social media didn’t take kindly to her words, despite Carney largely offering them praise, and pointed to the margin of their Championship title victory in a mocking tweet.

Quote tweeting a video of her comments, Leeds wrote on social media: “Promoted because of Covid. Won the league by 10 points. Hi @primevideosport.“

Leeds owner Radrizzani defended the nature of the tweet, insisting he found Carney’s comments disrespectful.

He wrote on social media: “I take the responsibility of the club tweet.

“I consider that comment completely unnecessary and disrespectful to our club and particularly to the fantastic hard work of our players and coaches whom were understanding on the pitch for the last two championship seasons by all stats.”

Romaine Sawyers’ 25 yard own goal was just the start of misery for the hosts before quickfire first-half goals from Ezgjan Alioski, Jack Harrison and Rodrigo.

Raphinha also netted in the second half as Leeds recorded their biggest victory in the top flight since a 6-1 win over Charlton in 2003.

Bielsa’s side kept back-to-back clean sheets for the first time this season to climb to 11th in the Premier League table.

Player ratings

West Brom: Johnstone (6), Furlong (5), O’Shea (6), Ajayi (5), Peltier (5), Phillips (5), Sawyers (4), Gallagher (5), Diangana (5), Robinson (6), Grant (5).

Subs: Ivanovic (6), Pereira (6), Krovinovic (6).

Leeds: Meslier (6), Dallas (7), Ayling (8), Struijk (7), Alioski (8), Phillips (7), Raphinha (8), Klich (7), Rodrigo (8), Harrison (8), Bamford (7).

Subs: Shackleton (6), Hernandez (6), Costa (n/a).

Man of the match: Ezgjan Alioski

West Brom boss Sam Allardyce: “Things can happen like that [the own goal], they are unexpected but when they do happen, they have to pick themselves up and fight, be determined.

“Leeds are a tremendous side, I think they are brilliant, but we’ve seen a performance like that against Liverpool and then we can’t do the defending right tonight.

“Leeds overran us, won 5-0 and they deserved it. I was shocked to see such a poor performance and we have to work hard to put it right. Consistency is everything for us. We can’t seem to get a consistency of attacking and defending right.”

“Life will get difficult if we can’t get results quickly. We need to make sure we don’t dish up another performance like that. Liverpool was fantastic, but this was dreadful, unfortunately.”

Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa: “It was a game where we defended well and we were efficient up front. From eight chances we scored five and that helped the result.

“We played a serious game throughout and we managed the ball well, not committing any errors for them to attack us, apart from a few cases in the second half.

“We have to keep doing the same and keep doing it over a longer period of time. We have had a lot of highs and lows, only two games ago we had an important defeat and our idea is to play in a consistent manner.”

Fans reacted after seeing the Leeds owner hits back at pundit Karen Carney after what she said about the club…

@KieranBrannigan: I work with @karenjcarney week in week out. You won’t find a more dedicated, well researched pundit anywhere. Delete this tweet

@georgeIufc: she’s not wrong tbf

@bielsaballl: This is what happens when you employ idiots to commentate – no research and no thought to the commentary.

Ronnie Baker: Karen Carney in the wrong there, the Leeds owner fully deserves to criticise her

@Shakermakermatt: In jan to march (lockdown) leeds picked up 17 points out of 36. Thats 47% of the points available. After lockdown from 27 pts Leeds picked up 22, 81%. There was a turn around of form after lockdown, so yes covid may of helped change form and shes right to highlight this

@Joe_Mally11: Won the league by ten points, Covid or not, nobody was stopping Leeds last season. Everyone else slipped up whereas Leeds marched on to the prem and deservedly so

@MarkMartindale: Great result tonight for Leeds and then they tweet something like this…it lacks class.

@LeedsInShetland: Won 5 games on the trot before lockdown, clean sheets too iirc? Truly appalling punditry. Sent her an invitation, when possible, for her to watch those 5 games pre lockdown, and the games after for the 10 point gap win of the league. Treat her to a meal, to digest the facts well.

@tobtipp: Love our social media content but this isn’t our finest moment. Watched all the game analysis….fair and even handed throughout, might want to hit delete and move on to the actual media battles.

@andytommo93: She downplayed a lot of hard work everyone around the club put in to achieve winning the league by 10 points and ending 16 years of misery….. and she gives the credit to covid

@DPR3979: Sloppy sloppy punditry. Felt like she was reading other non informed journalists rather than spending time doing her own research. Fair play to @LUFC for tweeting this out.

@sausagelincs: This is poor. Pretty sure we all disagree with the comment that was made but at same time it’s very easy to predict the torrent of misogyny she’s now going to receive after amplifying it via the club account.

Jason Dix: What a storm Leeds owner and Karen Carney have created overnight!

Can we all take a moment to realise that this particular pundit has not been called out based on gender. They’ve been called out for crediting a global pandemic for Leeds winning promotion. It’s an uneducated lazy response. So yes, this pundit deserves to be ridiculed for it imo.

— LUFC SANTA 🎅🏻💛🤍💙 (@LUFC_SANTA) December 30, 2020

Weren’t we on a 5 games winning run before the lockdown struck 😂

— Tez Wardley (@TezWardley) December 29, 2020

Poor form Leeds. Is it a bad take? Yes. Are you going to do this for all the other pundits who have a similar bad take? Are you going to call out the sexism from your fans? I love watching your team and it was a great win tonight. But this leaves a sour taste.

— Alex Mann (@plastic_pearl) December 29, 2020

It’s not an opinion though is it when she is saying ‘Leeds only got promoted because of CoVid’ it’s a disingenuous statement that detracts from the hard work and effort that the club and players put into the previous 2 seasons, just to sum it up by saying CoVid got Leeds up! Lazy

— Russ Knight (@pepperminthippo) December 29, 2020

Explain why? Pundits just get away saying whatever they want with no repercussions. It’s good it’s being called out. Christ we only won 5 in a row before covid. No idea what shes talking about. Genuinely interested why you don’t think a lazy take is being called out though?

— Nick Horton (@nickhort14) December 29, 2020

Also nobody seems to be calling out Hasselbaink agreeing with her. Why?

— Simon Wilcox (@RockyTheCoder) December 29, 2020

For some reason all the football broadcasters seem to think he’s the “go to” ex-player to represent Leeds when we’re on. He walked out on us for money just before the 1999-2000 season started and left us in the lurch. He’s back cos he can make more money out of us now 💩

— Bremner4 (@Bremner48) December 29, 2020

She actually had a valid point, bielsa’s teams are famous for burning out towards end of the season due to relentless work

Leeds did burn out first year and failed to get automatic and play off promotion.

The break from covid stopping football did help.

Unpopular but true.

— Adam #GSBout (@adambrown93) December 29, 2020

Am sure your daughter you always tweet about would be delighted to hear that her dad is saying that whatever job she does in the future will only be because she’s there to fill a quota…

— Ben (@Ben_MCIJ) December 29, 2020