![]() It sparked a plethora of bad decisions and meant there were too many different agendas about who was bought, who was sold and when. ![]() ![]() Ultimately, you can’t run a football club trying to compete in the Premier League while trying to sell it, especially when the sale is conditional upon Leeds staying in the division. It’s yet another example of the casino finances of football. Leeds owner Radrizzani struck me as being arrogant, off-hand and slightly away with himself How did intellectually capable, talented people running the club manage to get themselves into a position where the best they can do is chuck millions at a manager, who, if we’re being brutal, can point to his most recent achievement as getting West Brom relegated? Without wishing to be mean-spirited, handing Allardyce £500,000 for four games, or the best part of £3million if he keeps them up, was ugly and unedifying, although the preservation of £100m-plus that survival brings would be justification enough I guess! We’re talking about a ghoulish amount of money here. The appointment of Allardyce also shows the profligacy and sheer unadulterated waste that football is prepared to stomach. He probably would have kept them up through sheer force of personality, but this back-of-the-fag-packet approach to hiring and firing managers has led us to this point. They might as well have gone for Big Sam Allardyce there and then. Then it was pinning the tail on the donkey time and they ended up with Javi Gracia because they couldn’t find anyone else. It was inevitable he was going to go, but rather than sacking him before the World Cup as they should have done and replacing him with Sean Dyche, who would have more than likely jumped at the opportunity, Leeds displayed no coherence or logic, dithered, and allowed Marsch to spend big in January - including a club record signing who has barely played - before finally making a decision and booting him out when the transfer window closed. Leeds paid a ghoulish amount of money to Sam Allardyce (right) in an attempt to survive I was always a naysayer about Marsch’s appointment, but it was soon clear to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention that he wasn’t the right man for the job. He smacked to me of someone wishing things were so rather than it actually being so. They needed to change the team and the way they played because it had run its course but they brought in Marsch, who, although probably more tactically proficient than people gave him credit for, was all platitudes. Bielsa’s legacy probably needed to be exorcised but it wasn’t. So while this is nothing like the s*** storm Leeds faced back in 2004, they have turned themselves into a self-inflicted disaster zone.įrom allowing Bielsa to go on too long when his approach had run its race, to appointing Jesse Marsch on the basis that what worked in the uncompetitive leagues of Germany and Austria would work in the Premier League. Maybe going down will clear up this mess because what has been going on is as clear as mud. Leeds have been a rudderless ship, with everyone seemingly pulling in different directions and distracted by different agendas. ![]() There have been too many cooks, with none of them making a particularly good recipe. Relegation will lead to some much-needed clearer thinking at the top between Radrizzani and the San Francisco 49ers NFL franchise who plan to launch a full takeover. However, it’s a different situation now compared to their last Premier League relegation and, while there is never a good time to go down, it might actually focus some minds at Elland Road. It is somewhat ironic then that Radrizzani is, in part, the architect of the current decline. That spectacular fall from grace gave us a carnival of characters, from the irascible, ultimate football opportunist Ken Bates and the strangeness of Massimo Cellino to current owner Andrea Radrizzani, who was the miracle worker and saviour for a new generation of fans, catapulting Leeds out of the abyss of the Football League under the enigmatic Marcelo Bielsa. Mail Sport columnist Simon Jordan (pictured) reflects on the struggles Leeds have endured ![]()
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