The Leeds United Miserablist, interesting but not impressive times - Clarkeonenil.co.uk 22/8/12

Michael Green
So two games into the 2012-13 season and where are we? Well to be blunt all over the place. Once you peel away the veneer of early season optimism and OTT expectation levels you find a football club no further nearer sorting itself out, on or off the pitch, than it has been for most of the last decade. Whether you believe in buy-outs or not, drink at the fountain of Warnock’s hyperbole or don’t it doesn’t take much thinking about to note that despite all the interesting sideshows delusional promotion dreams are at some point about to get stamped on.
Now notwithstanding this columns name (and my reputation) I rhetorically challenge anyone to show where any of the detail outlined in this article is wrong or unduly “negative”. The truth is I don’t need to over guild any Miserablist lilies, the state of the club does it all for me. However I am always happy to acknowledge realities and it is absolutely true a significant rump of the support are lapping up the concoction of potential new beginnings, fast-talking management and burgeoning “dirty Leeds” playing style with gusto. Strangely enough this is hardly a new phenomena, happens every season and the promoters are the usual (should know better) suspects.
Let us start with takeover fever. As interesting as it has been following the drip, drip of information around who is or isn’t involved in this takeover one thing stands up above all else: the new consortium will start life in deficit to the fans. No amount of “confidentiality clauses” (which are not about preventing identification of the buyers, that is an exercise in futility as fit and proper owners rules require that information, it’s about preventing our present owner’s byzantine ownership structures being exposed) excuses the lack of a public face or basic public relations activity. The Arabian peninsula boys and girls may think keeping certain persons in a information loop will garner them some brownie points, they clearly don’t understand Leeds fans if they do.
More significant however than that communications fail is the nature of what (subject to Bates signing the small outstanding forms) we will be getting. The Gulf Finance House element was in the mix relatively early to this saga, GFH Capital is but a smaller subsidiary to that organisation, so whilst we shouldn’t fixate on the parent companies rescheduling of its debt burden we should recognise that its sibling doesn’t operate in the high 9 figure sums area. Basically we are swapping one complicated ownership structure for an equally complicated but differently financed version. Now whilst now would be a good point to re-iterate the “anyone but Bates” position that shouldn’t prevent us from recognising we are dealing with venture capitalism with Middle Eastern protocols, thus do not expect a new era of transparency!
Previous Miserablist offerings have suggested that even if we are to assume a low 9 figure sum (£150-200m) will be on offer for investment, it will need to cover a good 5 seasons (stabilising the club, getting promoted and sticking in the PL). One of the reasons I am less than impressed with the slowness of the takeover process is that we can almost definitely assume this season is a write off for any of that investment to be useful, so basically it’s that investment (which also has to cover repurchasing assists, covering losses, paying the consultancy costs…) over 6 seasons. Regardless of whether it’s the newly identified Dubai based “Tories abroad” Mr D Haigh or some other Yorkshire infused front man (maybe has LUFC experience) the new owners will find themselves having to keep the cap on a bubbling over level of expectation.
One man who could never be accused of not knowing how to stoke expectation its Warnock, even when he is suggesting the squad isn’t top 2 material it just gets the ra-ra girls excited that a couple of “quality signings” will change that. Warnock may not be my cup of tea in football manager terms but he is a clever manipulator that is for sure. Again as I have previously suggested it would be nice if new owners meant a new manager (with the short-termism Warnock represents finally dispatched from the club) but a combination of a lack of footballing experience in the frame for takeover and the Cornish connection makes me think Warnock is safe till results say otherwise. Bizarrely I would be happier if Warnock was on a 3 year contract (or even a rolling 1 year one) than the 10 months he has left, any form of medium term planning is better than a 10th consecutive season of short-term thinking, even under Mr Total Anti Football. No I haven’t gone soft, bottom line is results get managers sacked regardless of length of contract, it just so happens Warnock’s present contract is the worst of all worlds (but then Bates/Harvey gave it him so we know why).
Speaking of results we need to get real on Warnock, after the win against Wolves and the win/draw/loss against Blackpool his league games record at Elland Road reads W4/D4/L8 a win percentage of 25% from 16 games. Compare that with our last 10 managers (some of whom were underwhelming) and it doesn’t look impressive at all (and as also pointed out on this site the first 10 games record tends to be reflected in the final figures). If the last fourteen games of last season are replicated in the first fourteen of this we are struggling (given how new the squad is, particularly the starting xi struggling should be expected), even if you doubled the wins to 6 we are mid-table. Factor in the way other clubs in our division have set out their stall and play-offs if we are really lucky seems to be our glass ceiling (well some of you lots glass ceiling, mine is about 13th). Anything that “does the job” is a reasonable position to have but it is better to acknowledge what has worked, and that is silky ball passing ala Swansea City and young hungry footballer’s ala Norwich City and Southampton, Warnock isn’t in the business of either of those.
Watching the Wolves game was Groundhog Day to me, August 2004 or August 2006 or even August 2010 (yes I know we lost that game but the general sentiment was the same), I was only relieved it wasn’t August 2007! Poor football disguised as endeavour and then extrapolated after the victory into a beacon of hope. Well we all know what happens to beacons, somebody sets fire to them and they become ash! Stephen Clark touched on it yesterday; the solid battling elements of our new back 9 can’t disguise the gaping lack of quality throughout the team and you wonder outside of the obvious two of Becchio and McCormack who is going to score goals. Yes I can appreciate Austin’s all action style already (but I can also notice he over hits passes constantly) and yes I can smile at Pearce and his solidity and I can even enjoy Paddy Kenny’s combination of calm area control and headless hopeless charging from his box tendency, but you need more than that. With Green getting an injury Warnock has even less ball passing to offer us, said it once said it a million times, it isn’t going to be pretty regardless of league position.
Warnock, whether through Bates/Harvey or through GFH Capital, gets a chance to add some quality to the squad over the next 9 days but to be honest given how he changes his mind like an hysterical girl about which players he wants (Diouf must have been charm itself over that romantic dinner) it is almost impossible to know who he would bring in that he classes as “quality”. The twitter children can dream Barton and Bothroyd but I’d be more concerned its Heskey and Smith (Tommy) he is looking at. I see numerous claims we are getting Maynard (and I would be pleased if we did) but to be blunt given the industrial nature of our midfield I would settle for a Lee Frecklington!
From my perspective what I would really like Warnock to do is see if his record with supposed talented PL youngsters is better than Grayson’s. Not only would that lower the average age of his signings this summer (presently standing at 29.8 years old and more than 30 when Webber and Robinson are added from last season) but would replicate what other in our division are doing (scan the competitors signings of the summer and see how many decent young players have been taken on). Yes there are risks, I too was crying tears of laughter and pain as Livermore made his England debut after recalling his abject stay at Elland Road, but those risks are less than having a journeyman oldie on a 3 year contract! In terms of a real statement of intent if we could get Spearing in from Liverpool that would be good, alas Bolton seem to have got in first.
Whilst we are on players, can we please let Byram develop at his own speed, too many times we have seen youngsters come in early doors, get new contracts on the back of one or two performances and then fade. If I was Neil Redfern I would have a life size poster of Simon Walton pinned to the Thorp Arch dressing rooms to remind everyone what unfulfilled expectation looks like! Equally Austin needs time to fit into his role, if we give him instant cult hero status it can only hinder his adjustment. Yes there is a 1 in 10 chance he is a slightly lesser Dacourt but no one who has seen the 200 bits of garbage that has worn the white shirt over the last decade will discount the possibility he is the next Jonathan Douglas. Finally on this part, McCormack; yes he has signed a three year contract, always good, but be of no doubt, any late bid over £3m from a PL side and we can wave him away ala Delph or Gradel style. Hopefully that won’t happen.
Now from where I am sitting none of the above is coincidence, actually the opposite is true, the short-term thinking of the board has been replicated in the squad, that is why Snodgrass, Schmeichal, Howson, Delph, Gradel, Johnson, Kikenny, Kilgallon and others are elsewhere and we have Drury, Diouf and Andy Gray. You don’t get promotion on one season gambles unless you planning on becoming the next Hull City (go up, spend it all on wages, go down and nearly go bust) Someone somewhere at Elland Road has to lay down the markers that change this culture of slow decline. Now personally I don’t care who starts this process; Haigh/A.N. Other, Warnock or Peltier by leading from the front on the medium term, I do know it probably should come from the top and as the top is still as you read this Mr K.W. Bates it clearly isn’t happening yet.

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