Poyet has right credentials but Leeds United can’t afford to dither over job
YEP 6/4/13
By Phil Hay
Leeds United and Gus Poyet are a good fit. I say that as someone who has written about five of the club’s managers, three of their caretakers and all of the staff who’ve trodden the white tiles of Thorp Arch in the past seven years.
Public opinion on Poyet is divided as public opinion on each of the mooted replacements for Neil Warnock seems to be. There is no popular choice this time and no market leader, despite a surge of support for David O’Leary. O’Leary’s convenient appearance on Sky Sports on Tuesday night did the trick. Petitions online are calling for his appointment.
I can’t vouch for O’Leary’s suitability, except to say that seven years away from high-level management is a long sabbatical.
Other journalists on the YEP had the privilege of detailing his work at Leeds. But Poyet I know.
And in Poyet you’ll find the one person – manager, assistant or coach – whose popularity among the players at Thorp Arch was essentially unanimous. Few on my watch could claim to have held the same respect.
Yet in spite of how effective the Uruguayan might be, here are the facts. He would cost a flat fee of £2.5m to buy out of his contract at Brighton, the price of a release clause in his deal.
That outlay does not take into consideration his substantial salary or the expense of recruiting Poyet’s backroom team of Mauricio Taricco and Charlie Oatway, both of whom would be non-negotiable add-ons.
There are other prohibitive factors too. Some close to Poyet have let it been known that he would be interested in the position at Elland Road but only if Brighton fail to win the Championship play-offs. And even then, you are asking him to decide whether he is better off leaving a club who have given him a new stadium, a healthy playing budget and plan to invest £23m in a state-of-the-art training ground. He has Latin spirit, Poyet, but he is not mad. Nor will he do Leeds a reckless favour.
So if United’s commitment to patient searching for Warnock’s successor is closely related to Poyet, they are gambling on a lot of variables. Likewise the advice from Warnock that Leeds can expect to have a wider and more credible selection of options in the summer; a better selection than they do at present.
It was never clear exactly what Warnock knows or which coaches he expected to lose their jobs when the season ends but an agent contacted by the YEP this week saw the situation differently, saying: “The odd club will change things around but most of the clubs who want rid of their managers will have done the deed by now.
“It should already be pretty obvious who’s available and who isn’t, within your budget.”
Leeds to an extent have time to play with, not least because the season is so close to a conclusion.
It will be over to all intents and purposes if they win at Charlton today. But there is patience and there is dithering, and United were guilty of dithering in between sacking Simon Grayson and appointing Warnock last year. It would be wrong to say that Warnock was a thought-out, considered selection. By the time he came in, his appointment was made urgently.
In the interim, Neil Redfearn – caretaker manager then and caretaker for the second time now – was hung out to a dry in a fashion ill-befitting a coach whose work with the academy is beyond reproach. You would like to think that someone with Redfearn’s remit would be immune from the fall-out of first-team issues but frustration manifests itself in unfair ways.
Caretakers aren’t immune from criticism and nor are they used to it, as he discovered a year ago. He must have felt some trepidation on Monday, knowing that the duty was his again.
United have a duty of their own to Redfearn – to ensure that his games in charge do not take place against a backdrop of inaction at Elland Road. It will only lead to trouble if Leeds make heavy weather of their last six games.
Nothing in all this is Redfearn’s fault, as any fool knows, but to quote his press conference on Thursday, where else can supporters aim their annoyance if not at the pitch and the touchline? The club must be seen to be scheming in the meantime.
Leeds have managers available to them now. They have Brian McDermott sat at home, waiting to take on his next job.
He’s been described to me as “uninspiring” on a number of occasions this week, prompting a review of his record at Reading: two defeats in 17 to reach the play-offs in 2011, 16 wins from 19 games to win the Championship title last season.
He’s uninspiring alright. Perhaps an O’Leary facemask would help.
It doesn’t have to be O’Leary and it doesn’t have to be McDermott. If McDermott is still on his sofa in four weeks’ time then we can safely assume that he is not United’s man.
The choice of the next manager is theirs to make, for their own reasons and in their own time, but taking time is not always a mark of care and Leeds should be wary of pushing this process into May or June simply because the state of the season allows them to do so. Better candidates available in the summer?
Says who?
By Phil Hay
Leeds United and Gus Poyet are a good fit. I say that as someone who has written about five of the club’s managers, three of their caretakers and all of the staff who’ve trodden the white tiles of Thorp Arch in the past seven years.
Public opinion on Poyet is divided as public opinion on each of the mooted replacements for Neil Warnock seems to be. There is no popular choice this time and no market leader, despite a surge of support for David O’Leary. O’Leary’s convenient appearance on Sky Sports on Tuesday night did the trick. Petitions online are calling for his appointment.
I can’t vouch for O’Leary’s suitability, except to say that seven years away from high-level management is a long sabbatical.
Other journalists on the YEP had the privilege of detailing his work at Leeds. But Poyet I know.
And in Poyet you’ll find the one person – manager, assistant or coach – whose popularity among the players at Thorp Arch was essentially unanimous. Few on my watch could claim to have held the same respect.
Yet in spite of how effective the Uruguayan might be, here are the facts. He would cost a flat fee of £2.5m to buy out of his contract at Brighton, the price of a release clause in his deal.
That outlay does not take into consideration his substantial salary or the expense of recruiting Poyet’s backroom team of Mauricio Taricco and Charlie Oatway, both of whom would be non-negotiable add-ons.
There are other prohibitive factors too. Some close to Poyet have let it been known that he would be interested in the position at Elland Road but only if Brighton fail to win the Championship play-offs. And even then, you are asking him to decide whether he is better off leaving a club who have given him a new stadium, a healthy playing budget and plan to invest £23m in a state-of-the-art training ground. He has Latin spirit, Poyet, but he is not mad. Nor will he do Leeds a reckless favour.
So if United’s commitment to patient searching for Warnock’s successor is closely related to Poyet, they are gambling on a lot of variables. Likewise the advice from Warnock that Leeds can expect to have a wider and more credible selection of options in the summer; a better selection than they do at present.
It was never clear exactly what Warnock knows or which coaches he expected to lose their jobs when the season ends but an agent contacted by the YEP this week saw the situation differently, saying: “The odd club will change things around but most of the clubs who want rid of their managers will have done the deed by now.
“It should already be pretty obvious who’s available and who isn’t, within your budget.”
Leeds to an extent have time to play with, not least because the season is so close to a conclusion.
It will be over to all intents and purposes if they win at Charlton today. But there is patience and there is dithering, and United were guilty of dithering in between sacking Simon Grayson and appointing Warnock last year. It would be wrong to say that Warnock was a thought-out, considered selection. By the time he came in, his appointment was made urgently.
In the interim, Neil Redfearn – caretaker manager then and caretaker for the second time now – was hung out to a dry in a fashion ill-befitting a coach whose work with the academy is beyond reproach. You would like to think that someone with Redfearn’s remit would be immune from the fall-out of first-team issues but frustration manifests itself in unfair ways.
Caretakers aren’t immune from criticism and nor are they used to it, as he discovered a year ago. He must have felt some trepidation on Monday, knowing that the duty was his again.
United have a duty of their own to Redfearn – to ensure that his games in charge do not take place against a backdrop of inaction at Elland Road. It will only lead to trouble if Leeds make heavy weather of their last six games.
Nothing in all this is Redfearn’s fault, as any fool knows, but to quote his press conference on Thursday, where else can supporters aim their annoyance if not at the pitch and the touchline? The club must be seen to be scheming in the meantime.
Leeds have managers available to them now. They have Brian McDermott sat at home, waiting to take on his next job.
He’s been described to me as “uninspiring” on a number of occasions this week, prompting a review of his record at Reading: two defeats in 17 to reach the play-offs in 2011, 16 wins from 19 games to win the Championship title last season.
He’s uninspiring alright. Perhaps an O’Leary facemask would help.
It doesn’t have to be O’Leary and it doesn’t have to be McDermott. If McDermott is still on his sofa in four weeks’ time then we can safely assume that he is not United’s man.
The choice of the next manager is theirs to make, for their own reasons and in their own time, but taking time is not always a mark of care and Leeds should be wary of pushing this process into May or June simply because the state of the season allows them to do so. Better candidates available in the summer?
Says who?
