Diouf the focus as Whites cruise
By Phil Hay
The sky was cloudy when El-Hadji Diouf drove into Elland Road but he wore sunglasses anyway. It would not be like him to keep the profile low, not with the most improbable of transfers about to go through.
Diouf has enough talent to merit a place in the squad at Elland Road but improbable is how the signing looked with Leeds and Neil Warnock both involved. He was until Saturday no friend of United’s and no great friend of Warnock’s either. Eighteen months have passed since the pair traded insult-for-insult after an FA Cup tie involving Queens Park Rangers and Blackburn Rovers.
It was long enough to clear the air and allow the signing of Diouf on non-contract terms. He did not dominate proceedings during Saturday’s League Cup tie between Leeds and Shrewsbury Town – two goals in either half earned United a 4-0 win – but he was still the point of interest: signing autographs on his arrival and earning a polite round of applause during the warm-up before starting the game on the bench. It was a change to be talking about something other than United’s elusive takeover.
Now 31 and a decade into a career in British football, the Senegalese international took to the pitch with the Saturday’s game already won and no time to do more than stretch his legs. There were boos among the applause and chants of ‘Dirty Leeds’ rang around him. All parties concerned with this arrangement know their history.
Warnock, who famously labelled Diouf a “sewer rat” during their spat in 2011, said: “I’m going to get stick for this. And no-one’s given him more stick than me over the years.
“I met him about six or seven weeks ago and it wasn’t a planned meeting. It was at a function. I ended up having an hour-and-a-half with him, taking about what I didn’t like about him and him talking football in general.
“I had to tell him what I disliked about him but it was a good meeting. I enjoyed the conversation I don’t think in life you ever say never but let’s be fair, it would be far easier for me not to involve him than to sign him and have it all in the papers. It would be easier not to do it, wouldn’t it?
“But I think in our situation, we haven’t got any money. He’s on a Bosman, he’s quality, he’s not fazed by a club this size. Some players who come here freeze.”
There is method in the madness which some see in this signing. If Diouf takes up a permanent deal this week – a deal which is unlikely to run for longer than 12 months – then the cost will not be horrendous. It would give a club with no immediate spending power a right winger and a striker in one foul swoop.
The aesthetic appeal of Diouf at Elland Road is open to debate but this was a matter of pragmatism. The crux of the argument is that Warnock cannot really do without him, unless the proposed takeover of United breathes again and suddenly fills his pockets.
“I spoke to Mickey Walker (Doncaster Rovers’ former director of football), a good friend of mine. He said Diouf was one of the best lads around Doncaster. He didn’t shirk anything and was great around the kids. One or two people I spoke to couldn’t speak highly enough of him.
“There were one or two strikers out of the Premier League I was looking at up to this week but we haven’t been able to bring them in. It’s too much money at the moment and we can’t move players on like we want to. It suited both parties and I don’t think there’s a another club in the Championship he could have played for. Anywhere else, he probably wouldn’t have been given an opportunity.”
Confirmation of Diouf’s signing on non-contract terms was the saving grace for Saturday’s Capital One Cup tie – a game which was lost in the confusion which surrounds the planned buy-out of Leeds by a consortium from the Middle East.
The League Cup has never driven Warnock in the way that promotion-after-promotion does but the lack of attention earned by Shrewsbury’s visit to Elland Road was not his fault or even his intention.
It was virtually suffocated by a takeover which turned off and on in the space of 24 hours last week but might yet come to pass. Fresh negotiations on Friday were described to the YEP as “extremely positive”, and both sides appear optimistic of meeting in the middle.
Whether the deal proceeds or not, Warnock has the reassurance of a team in place. His squad on Saturday was riddled with Championship stock and only the name of Sam Byram looked particularly out of place in a starting line-up containing seven new signings. On the strength of his form in pre-season, Byram was not undeserving of the competitive debut which came as a result of an injury to Tom Lees. His performance was excellent.
Without Lees, Warnock’s defence stood up to scrutiny from a side who finished second in League Two last season and had an accomplished feel. United were stretched twice in the first six minutes, throwing bodies around to block a shot from Michael Hector and leaving Paddy Kenny to clasp Rob Purdie’s effort, but both resembled the type of chances conceded routinely by Leeds last season.
In Kenny, moreover, Warnock has an instinctive keeper and a safe pair of hands. His answer to a scramble caused by a deep corner was to drop down and deny Mark Wright and Jermaine Grant from close range, and Kenny’s catch of Marvin Morgan’s volley on his goalline brought to mind the cliché of fine margins. It was a goal averted by a matter of millimetres.
Shrewsbury had played their way into the tie impressively by then but two blink-of-the-eye errors from Hector killed the game in the space of six minutes.
The centre-back miscontrolled the ball after his goalkeeper, Chris Weale, punched Rodolph Austin’s shot straight at him, leaving Becchio to do the rest. In the 27th minute, Hector covered his mouth with his hands again when a deflection off his legs ran and reached Ross McCormack who allowed Varney to attack an open goal.
That turn of events gave Leeds a licence to play with all the freedom they wished and they turned a steady contest into a procession, improving as the game went on.
The impressive David Norris scored on 66 minutes, scuffing Varney’s knockdown past Weale with his right shin and McCormack converted a penalty four minutes later after the hapless Hector handed Paul Green’s lob. In all, it was a tuneful prelude to the main event and United’s first Championship game against Wolves.
Warnock said: “I can’t wait for that game, I’m so glad it’s Wolves. And then Blackburn in the second game at home. They’re great games and it’ll be nice to be underdogs.
“You could see early doors that we haven’t had time to work on basic things and because of that we gave them too much time. We’ll be working on it next week and that’s why it’s great not to have a game in mid-week. Once we brush up on that we won’t give teams an opportunity to dominate games. Some of their chances would have been goals at Championship level.”