Like the hole in my old 1990s knitted scarf , Leeds United have started to come undone. Judging by last night’s game, we are unravelling at the speed of knots (pun completely intended there). Opportunity to stick a picture of a cat in my blog? Done!
There are lots of possible song titles I could use for this blog. The obvious one would have been; Leeds, Leeds Are Falling Apart Again. I resisted that though. I don’t like that song anyway, the irony has long gone, dissipated into the ether many moons ago. There’s also “Jessie” by Joshua Kadison. Yes, this is an actual song, see excerpt below. If you forget the line about the trailer, it could be how the anti-Bielsa mob could be summed up
If he keeps us up though, they will be vindicated. But if we do avoid relegation, it won’t be because of him, it’ll be in spite of him. We’d have been better off with this Jessie
I chose Come Undone as a nod to Duran Duran, not the Robbie Williams one. I’m not really a fan of his, especially the bitterness when he left Take That, but only because his vitriol put my acrimony to shame! It’s not often my rancour is eclipsed. Some of the lyrics of the Robbie “Come Undone” song do occasionally reflect on the situation that we find ourselves in though, you’ll have to listen to it to understand. But the Duran Duran version really hits home.
Leeds United have come undone. It’s falling apart at the seams, right before our eyes.
There’s two more games to go. I thought last night we would have come out fighting. Chelski have a Cup final to think about, we could have had a result against Arsenal on Sunday had we kept 11 men on the pitch. There was a massive build up encouraging fans to get behind the team and the usual segues (not sedgeways) from the manager with his inspirational quotes from some other famous dead person givvying us on. What happened?
Damp squib. Flat as a fart.
Anyone who regularly reads this blog will know how I feel about our new manager and the sacking of Bielsa. I wonder how Bielsa is feeling right now. Seeing the efforts of 3 years of hard slog (on his part and the players too, who objected to it more than we will know), go down the toilet. I wonder if Bielsa could have a meeting with The Board and our new manager today, would be doing it using a nice powerpoint?
I jest, but I am so incensed with it all. I started off incandescent, then I fumed and now, I’m incensed. We were abysmal last night, from start to finish.
The usual excuses have abounded overnight. It’s not the new managers fault, he only had 10 games to change it. But he didn’t change it, did he? It’s the same. Nothing has changed apart from being much, much more narrower. Plus we have Coops and Phillips back, and Lord Bamford too, for a short while. Bielsa was decried for not having a Plan B. I don’t even think we had a Plan A last night.
You only have to look at Newcastle and Brentford, even Burnley really, and what they did in response to the threat of relegation.
The Geordies spent big. £93 million big. But he also looked to the existing squad too.
They weren’t going to take any chances. And it worked didn’t it? They have leapfrogged us now, and are clear of the dropzone, happily contemplating next season.
Brentford bought Eriksen and Raya, their keeper, came back from injury. He’s made a massive difference. There’s a reason why Toney can smile. They’re more or less safe.
Burnley sold Chris Wood – to Newcastle and then sacked Dyche. I thought they had resigned themselves to relegation at that point and looking to the parachute payment to see them rebound straight back up. But the dead cat bounce back has helped them. We can only hope that the luck has departed them though, or else it’s curtains for us.
The Board took a gamble, and we shall have the result of that gamble soon. Either we stay up or we come undone and we capitulate.
When they sacked Bielsa, even I thought that we’d stay up. I thought typical, they sack Bielsa just before the winning run starts, the new manager would be bound to keep us up and then Bielsa’s sacking would be completely justified. Everyone would believe that Bielsa was the problem, even though our position in the table was down to a combination of the obscene injury list, ridiculous refereeing decisions, some absolutely shocking anti-football /cheating from Wolves, Brentford and Southampton, unlucky deflections and the post and the bar basically expanding by an inch whenever Rodrigo shot near them.
We were 15th but we had Coops, Bamford and Kalv to come back into the team. We’d had a terrible run since losing 7-0 to Citeh at Christmas, but we’d played Sc*m, Liverpool and Spurs, had two long aways at West Ham and played a hard fought 3-3 against Villa away. We were due to play Leicester and Everton, had the likes of Norwich, Wolves and Watford to go at and winable games against Southampton and Palace too.
How could we not stay up?
The board came out with the “It was always the plan to bring the new manager in anyway in the summer”, “Bielsa was just too difficult”, “The players couldn’t cope”. Who could forget this little quote?
I can’t. Remember everything, forgive nothing. But if we were safe by now, no one would remember this.
But 10 games later, we’ve come undone. Don’t get me wrong, if that tackle on Joffy at the end of the Southampton game had been given as a penalty, that would have given us a bit of leeway. Mind you, had we defended that free kick better and not been so negative, we’d be 2 points better off.
Hindsight & Presumption
Hindsight is a marvellous thing isn’t it? But presumption – presumption is the sickener. Hindsight and presumption is the footballing equivalent to Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice. The board presumed we would stay up without Bielsa. The players presumed that murderball wasn’t necessary. The players presumed they didn’t need the harsh training regime that Bielsa forced them into. The players presumed that they had got us promoted, into 9th in the first season up and they didn’t need to do much more than just turn up. Similar to all the new fans at Leeds United who just presumed they would be able to get a ticket when they wanted to. Unlike Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, there’s no happy ending for anyone here. It’s lose lose, unless we stay up of course.
But the truth has been revealed. Or at least last night’s game revealed a lot of truths.
Our fitness has sunk to Paddy Kenny lows. We have about as much pace as Jabba the Hut. Our tackling skills have packed up and gone on their summer holidays already, all they needed was the finesse of the Beradi bloodbath to make them extra special. Our formation looks as steady as the first little pigs’ straw house – in a Force 10 gale. We look as organised and capable as The Prince Regent in BlackAdder The Third, or for those of you who will remember, Selwyn Froggett. Never mind – oh never mind! We have bumbled through in Clouseau fashion since the new managers arrival, somehow winning a few games. I can only hope that in the classic indomitable Peter Sellars’ style, we get the job done in the next few games, somehow.
I’m fed up of this “oh well, I preferred it in the Chumpionship”. No! I didn’t. We, or rather Bielsa, fought long and hard to get us back where we belong. I don’t want us to go down. Nevermind this “If we go down, we go down fighting” rubbish. We need to fight and not let all this hard work of the last 3 years go to waste.
The only ones who want us back in the Championship are the EFL. Do we really want to go back to being their cash cow? Not likely
