Leeds United fans survey: Relegation blame split, a No 9 needed, and buyout backed - The Athletic 13/6/23
By Phil Hay
If the dust was ever known to truly settle at Leeds United,
it would be settling now. The club are a fortnight on from relegation from the
Premier League and, if nothing else, the end of a soul-destroying season should
have allowed everyone to draw breath.
But instead, it’s all go at Elland Road: a takeover pending,
a new head coach required and decisions to be made en masse about which players
stay, which ones leave and which new faces will come through the door in the
summer transfer window that officially opens this week.
With 49ers Enterprises now on the road to acquiring the club
from Andrea Radrizzani, we wanted to get your views on the lie of the land at
Leeds. Thousands of you replied to our 10-question survey and the results are
here…
1. Where did the main responsibility for Leeds’ relegation
lie?
Relegation from the Premier League is rarely down to one failing alone and a few of you pointed out in our comments section that responsibility had to be spread across a number of fronts. That’s difficult to argue with. But the results of our poll point a finger directly at recruitment and the role of former director of football Victor Orta in it.
Almost 42 per cent of people who took part in the survey
felt transfers completed by Leeds and the club’s choice of head coach were as
telling as anything else in the demise of their status as a top-flight side. It
is undeniable that from the end of the 2020-21 season onwards, very few
decisions succeeded in building a competitive team or finding an adequate
replacement for Marcelo Bielsa, who was sacked in February last year. Much of
that was Orta’s turf.
A fair amount of criticism was levelled at the ownership,
too, and not just at Radrizzani. In total, 36 per cent of responses laid the
blame at the door of the boardroom. And while some was reserved for the players
and the impact made by the club’s various head coaches, it was minimal by
comparison.
The message is fairly clear here — the biggest shortcomings
were operational and strategic and the buck stops at the top.
2. Is a full takeover by 49ers Enterprises from Andrea
Radrizzani in the best interests of the club?
49ers Enterprises reached an agreement with Radrizzani to take 100 per cent control of Leeds last week and that deal will go through once EFL approval is secured. There are very few people inside Elland Road who do not think a takeover is needed and The Athletic’s survey produced the same verdict. More than 85 per cent of votes said the American buyout was in the club’s best interests, with 13 per cent unsure and virtually nobody inclined to think that Radrizzani staying on as majority shareholder this summer would have been a good idea.
3. Do you have confidence in 49ers Enterprises to provide
competent ownership and deliver on its plans?
It is always wise to treat any football club owner, new or
existing, with a degree of scepticism. Or to at least avoid assuming that life
will be milk and honey on their watch.
It’s clear 49ers Enterprises has big intentions for Leeds,
not least when it comes to redeveloping Elland Road and regaining the club’s
Premier League status. The fund has money behind it and it is logical to deduce
that it is not throwing cash at Leeds for the privilege of year after year in
the EFL, nose pressed against the glass separating those three divisions from
the top flight. But plans on paper are easy to draw up.
As many owners of the club have found, delivering tangible
progress can be difficult — a fact which probably explains why the outcome of
question four in this survey is quite sympathetic towards Radrizzani, despite
Leeds bombing out of the Premier League last month.
So although 54 per cent of voters believe 49ers Enterprises
will provide good ownership and deliver on the promises it makes, a chunky 43
per cent marked themselves down as unsure.
The proof will be in the pudding and so far the main players
behind 49ers Enterprises have said very little publicly. Some firm and
convincing communication would doubtless increase supporters’ confidence
levels.
4. Overall, how will you look back at Radrizzani’s reign?
There are points in time where the answer to this would have been different — promotion in the summer of 2020, for instance; or 12 months later, after Leeds had finished ninth in their first Premier League season for 17 years and looked a little unstoppable. Much of the credit for that went to Bielsa, but there’s no denying Radrizzani’s reputation was at a high water mark in those moments and there must be part of him that wishes he had picked a different moment to sell up.
Objectively, parts of his six years do him credit and any
knowledge of club history tells you Leeds have had far worse owners. But he
departs with them back in the Championship, Elland Road largely untouched and
the cycle of trying to get out of the second division beginning again.
The nuance is reflected by almost 75 per cent of people
saying their overall view of his tenure falls somewhere between success and
failure, rather than swinging to either extreme. Only six per cent classed it
as an outright failure.
5. Which player would you be most concerned to lose in this
window?
A clear result here: Tyler Adams. That stands to reason
because of all the players in the squad (or of all the players who are likely
to depart this summer), he is the one who Leeds would love to retain.
Realistically, that won’t be easy. Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa are both looking at Adams and he had a good enough first season individually in the Premier League to tempt clubs at that level to stump up cash for him. He’s better than the Championship, as anyone can see. But he’s also the sort of hard-nosed midfielder a club can build a strong team around and Leeds will need maturity and backbone next season.
Of the players we listed for this poll, 56 per cent of you
went with Adams as the one you least want to see move on. Wilfried Gnonto drew
a strong 23 per cent of votes and 11 per cent went for Jack Harrison. Rodrigo
took a small slice, too, most likely on the strength of his goalscoring this
season.
One interesting aspect was the apparent indifference to
losing goalkeeper Illan Meslier — though perhaps that is more a reflection of
other players mattering more, as opposed to people specifically wanting him
gone.
6. Which position needs addressing most?
To follow up on the final point in question five, a small
portion of voters indicated that a change of goalkeeper is their priority in
this transfer window. Common sense says Meslier might benefit from new pastures
and a fresh start, too. The past two years have been brutal in terms of goals
conceded.
But when it came to the position Leeds should pay most attention to, The Athletic’s survey threw up three old favourites — centre-forward, central midfield and left-back.
More than a third of you think securing a No 9 should be top
of the list for recruitment this summer. Just under a quarter want a new
left-back and while Junior Firpo is expected to move on, compelling Leeds to
address that area of their team regardless, the result might have been as high
even if he wasn’t.
As for the centre of midfield, Leeds announced yesterday
they were releasing Adam Forshaw at the end of his deal, though he has been
invited back for pre-season and could yet receive a contract offer which
reflects his injury struggles and low number of appearances.
Marc Roca, currently speaking to Real Betis about a loan
move home to Spain, is likely to go, Adams will be tough to retain, and it
doesn’t take much understanding of football to realise that the midfield could
need serious work before next season starts on the first weekend in August.
7. Does it matter if the coach Leeds appoint has
Championship experience, or of winning promotion from it?
The reason for asking this, or framing the question this way, is that a lot of the preliminary work done on finding a new head coach focused on individuals who have at least worked in the second tier of English football previously and maybe found a way out of it with other clubs. Ex-Fulham boss Scott Parker falls into the latter bucket, as does former Swansea City manager Brendan Rodgers. Daniel Farke — successful in leading Norwich City into the Premier League as champions in 2019 and 2021, either side of a relegation season — has also been sounded out and Leeds will try to finalise an appointment this week.
That said, the club have found before that knowing the
Championship is not a prerequisite to winning promotion. Bielsa was an EFL and
English football novice but had the measure of the division from the get-go
(hence 49ers Enterprises recently giving some thought to bringing him back).
In the end, 64 per cent of replies to our survey said
Championship experience was not important to you. You would rather just see
Leeds appoint a capable and talented coach. But 36 per cent of you think
differently — that understanding the division the club will be in come August
is useful in escaping it.
8. Do you believe Leeds can compete strongly for promotion
next season?
The Athletic published our survey shortly after Friday’s announcement that Radrizzani and 49ers Enterprises had reached a deal for a takeover. The timing cannot have harmed optimism levels.
Granted, this is not a black-and-white conversation. Leeds,
at present, are without both a head coach and a director of football and their
squad needs a huge turnover in the weeks ahead. It is nigh-on impossible to
paint an accurate picture of what the landscape will look like when their first
game in the 2023-24 Championship kicks off in less than eight weeks.
Nonetheless, 70 per cent of you believe Leeds will be good
enough for a proper crack at promotion — and if they handle this summer
properly, that has to be the right answer. Relegated or not, they have
£44million ($55.2m) in parachute payment money to use and 49ers Enterprises
should provide more finance in the way of working capital for player
recruitment.
9. Which single thing is most important in making next
season a success?
No messing about here. Two-thirds of voters said winning promotion in 12 months’ time would depend most heavily on Leeds’ choice of head coach. That’s probably an accurate observation. The quality of the squad will be critical, too, and 16 per cent picked out signing new players as the biggest factor in how next season goes, but a new manager will define tactics, the style of play and, as a result, the reliability of the team.
Only 10 per cent thought a new director of football or
sporting director would be the most significant influence — but maybe that
matters more to people in the longer term as Leeds and 49ers Enterprises try to
construct and deliver a future project. Other priorities feel more pressing.
10. Was football in the Championship more fun than the
Premier League?
On our Leeds United podcast, The Phil Hay Show (a big thanks for listening everyone — the show is continuing but now as part of The Square Ball’s output, starting this week), we often discussed the view that the competitive nature of the Championship made it more compelling than the Premier League. The top flight, if we’re being honest, is a bit of a closed shop unless a club are backed by truly obscene levels of wealth.
Those were hypothetical conversations and, suffice to say,
the theory is going to be put to the test very soon as we all get on the road
for games in Plymouth, Swansea, Cardiff, and so on. It might well be that in no
time at all, the reality feels very different but hell, you won’t have to put
up with Salt Bae.
